Aztec Blood

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN

"You did what?" I directed my exasperation at Mateo in the courtyard of my newly rented quarters. He was not a man who spent his life walking toward the gallows—he ran for the noose.

Mateo fondled his ever-present wine goblet, an expression of smug self-righteousness on his face. He smiled thinly at me through a haze of smoke. "Do you wish to discuss this matter calmly and quietly or would you rather we trumpeted it to your servants and neighbors."

I sat down. "Tell me what madness drove you to visit Don Silvestre. Start at the beginning so I will know whether to leave town... or garrote you."

He shook his head and tried to look innocent, which hardly rang true: His face was a battlefield of those scars that each bore a woman's name.

"Bastardo, my compadre—"

"Ex-compadre."

"I went to the house of your old family friend, Don Silvestre, a fine old caballero. There is snow on his head, his legs are weak at the knees, not to mention bowed from a lifetime on the saddle, but fire still burns in his heart. He is as you imagined him—mostly blind. I made the pretense of asking to examine his eyepiece. Without it, he could not count my fingers a foot from his nose."

"I hope you broke the glass."

"Of course not. Would a caballero like myself do that to an old knight?"

"Not unless it would assist you at a cantina's card table or into a woman's bed."

He sighed and emptied the goblet with a long drink. He refilled it before he went on with his story.

"We shall save breaking the old man's eyepiece to another day," he said.

"Soto's party has been changed to the viceroy's palace. The old man will probably attend."

"I already know that. He will not just attend, he is riding with us in our carriage."

"Santa Maria, Holy Mother of God." I got down on my knees and prayed before a stone angel pouring water into the patio fountain. "Save me from this madman, Holy Madre, and have God send lightning to strike him down."

"Bastardo, you panic too easily. You must face life's setbacks with equanimity, not hysteria. Now get up off your knees. I am not your priest."

I got to my feet. "Tell me how I am to ride in a carriage to the viceroy's ball with a man who will expose me as a fake the moment he sees me."

"The old man already believes you are Don Carlos because I have told him you are Don Carlos. You do not have to convince him. What you have to do is avoid un-convincing him. It will be dark when we pick him up. The street boy who spies for you will suddenly rush out of the darkness, grab his eyeglass, and run away. Even if, God forbid, the attack fails, Don Silvestre still will not recognize you. He has to get very close even to see with his eyeglass. Like any old caballero, he is vain about his age and physical condition. He is not only half blind but half deaf. If you speak quietly when you are forced to speak, he will not notice. Also, I will be there to carry the conversation. Don Silvestre does not like you because you have violated the caballero's code of honor. He will not speak to you unless he has to. However, after explaining to him the true circumstance of the crimes in Spain..."

"Sí, the true circumstance of my crimes. Why don't you let me know those circumstances."

He nicked ashes off the end of his tobacco roll. "What you did, of course, was protect the family honor."

"I beat my fiancé's father with a candlestick and stole her dowry."

"Ah, Bastardo, you believe everything you hear, and so does Don Silvestre. A friend writes him from Spain and says young Don Carlos is a thief and a blackguard. He believes it. But now another friend, me, has come and told him the truth."

"What is the truth? Will you tell me before I put my sword in my throat."

"The truth is that you took the blame for your older brother."

It stunned me. I repeated the words carefully. Than a second time, savoring them. "I took the blame for my older brother—to protect the family name."

I paced back and forth, feeling the words, getting into the mood of the comedia that Mateo was constructing. "Eh, my brother, the heir to the title and the family fortune, the possessor of our family's good name and honor, is a scoundrel. He violates my bride-to-be and steals my dowry. What is the honorable thing to do? If I kill him, as he so well deserves, the truth will come out, and our proud family name will be ruined. No, there is only one thing for me to do. I am the younger brother, heir to nothing, possessor of nothing. I assume the blame for my brother's foul deeds, save the family honor, and incur the punishment."

I bowed and saluted my friend with my hat. "Mateo Rosas, you are a true genius. When you told me you had constructed a comedia for the don, I saw only disaster. If we presented this play in Mexico City and Seville, we would be hailed as heroes of the quill and paper. This play would gain us the fortune we never acquired—at least legally."

Mateo tried to appear modest. "Don Silvestre accepted the story as readily as Moses accepted the word of God. It is now chiseled in stone in the old man's mind. He was embellishing upon it as I explained it to Eléna."

Did I hear him right? Did he just say that he had explained it to Eléna? Did he also whisper it in the viceroy's ear? Amigos, was I correct in my assumption that Mateo would someday get me hanged if I was not duly punished for my own crimes?

"Bastardo, you better have some of this wine. Your face was the color of death, and now it is turning to fire."

"When did you see Eléna?"

"This afternoon, when she came to Don Silvestre's after your meeting with the viceroy."

"Why did she go to Don Silvestre's?"

"To talk to the old man about you. She wanted the details of your crimes, to see if she could assist you in gaining pardon."

"And you told her this tale about taking the blame for my brother after you had convinced the don?"

"Actually, the inspiration for the tale came when I saw the lovely Eléna. Bastardo, you have supreme taste in women. She is a little delicate and intelligent for me, with a little more above the neckline and a little less below it than I prefer, but her eyes would conquer the soul of Eros himself."

"Explain exactly what occurred. Do not leave out any details. When I murder you, I want to have no feelings of guilt."

"This beautiful woman came in. She pled her case before me and the don, telling us in every detail how you had fought off a dozen pirates—"

"A dozen?"

"Some number like that. As I listened to her, I realized she loved you."

"Don't say that; I can't stand the hurt."

"We must face the truth. We have come back for revenge, but hate is only on one side of life's coin. The other side is love. When I heard the love in her voice, I knew I had to ensure that her love did not go unfulfilled. Did you know that my comedias always had happy endings? Eh, it's the truth. In matters of love, tragedy is so ubiquitous that I wrote only endings in which love triumphed."

"What did she say when she learned I had taken the blame for my brother?"

"She cried, Bastardo, she cried from joy and relief. She said that she knew that you were a good and honorable man from the very moment she looked into your eyes."

"¡Ay de mí!" I sat down and buried my face in my hands. The angel was so blinded by my saving her that she saw a half blood lépero as a man of honor. If she knew the truth about me, she would run in horror.

"And Don Silvestre? He did not deny the story?"

"He embellished upon it himself. It caught the old knight's fancy. And come to find out, the older brother was a scoundrel, too. But his black deeds were always washed away to save the family honor. It was right and proper to the don that a younger brother would make such a sacrifice. He got so caught up in the tale, he began to imagine that every black deed Don Carlos stood accused of was done in the name of honor. Your innocence, however, must never be disclosed, not if you are to protect the family name. I did, of course, agree that the viceroy should know. Eléna rushed to tell him the news."

I groaned. "And Luis. She will tell Luis. And she will tell her maid, who will tell the maid next door..."

Mateo shrugged. "And in a few weeks we will be gone."

"But Eléna will be left with the scandal. Today I deliberately insulted Luis by implying I was romantically interested in Eléna. While I angered him, I was no serious threat as the disgraced Don Carlos. Now I am doubly a hero. I sacrificed myself for my brother and almost threw down my life for Eléna. When she tells Luis that I am twice the hero, he will see me as a threat."

Mateo shook his head. "The viceroy would never let you marry Eléna even if you had repelled that entire pirate attack singlehandedly. You are still the third son of a minor family. Luis will be a marqués when his father dies. Socially, his claim to nobility is as strong as the viceroy's. That's why he is forcing her to marry him. It is Luis's pride that will make him kill you, not the threat to his marriage. Of course, if he finds out you are meeting Eléna, he will kill you sooner rather than later."

Another knife went into my gut. "Tell me that you have not done something as foolish as setting up an assignation with her."

He said nothing. I waited until he'd drained another goblet full of wine.

"What did you do?"

"Luis is a swine."

"What did you do?"

"The girl wishes to talk to you, to beg for forgiveness in ever doubting you. If you handle the matter right, you will partake of her favors before Luis gets the chance."

"Are you loco? Do you think I would use Eléna to avenge myself on my enemies?"

"You ask if I am loco? You have come back to New Spain to kill her husband-to-be and perhaps destroy her uncle, who raised her as a daughter. And you think you can do these deeds without damage to her?"

He got up from sitting on the edge of the fountain. "Bastardo, I will have to work very hard, very hard indeed, to write a happy ending to the tragic-comedia that you have begun."

ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN

The meeting Mateo had set up between Eléna and myself was arranged at the house of Don Silvestre's widowed daughter. Mateo said the widow, who was only a few years older than me, rarely used the house; she spent most of her time at the household of her father. The widow had many charms, Mateo told me, alluding to the fact that he would ensure she did not wither from lack of love.

I was nervous as I waited in the courtyard. An elderly india and her husband appeared to be the only servants at the house. On a small table, they had set out sweetmeats and wine. Darkness had fallen and they illuminated the area around me with candles. Protected by high walls, the location was private. A perfect place for a rendezvous with another man's woman.

I felt as if I had stepped onto a stage featuring the doomed lovers, Calisto and Melibea, if not an even more tragic comedia called Romeo and Juliet, a play Mateo said was written by an Englishman named Shakespeare. The quandary Mateo spoke of, that I could not destroy the others without harming Eléna, weighed heavy on my heart. The Fates were casting lots for my soul.

I heard the carriage outside and tensed with anticipation.

When she came through the gate, I got up slowly from where I had been sitting at the edge of the fountain. She had changed into a black dress and Wore a long, silk shawl over her head and draped down her shoulders. I had half expected her to wear a mask as was so common among the ladies of the city when traveling to an assignation, but no one would have recognized her with the shawl anyway.

"Doña Eléna." I bowed.

"Don Carlos."

To give my hands something to do, I gestured at the table of sweetmeats. "Our hostess is not at home, but she kindly provided a table of delicacies."

"I have met Doña Teodora. She is a good woman who cares well for her elderly father."

"I understand you were with the father today."

She came to me, holding out her hand. "Oh, Carlos, I am so happy you are not the scoundrel others claim you to be. Your sacrifice to protect your family name was that of a martyred saint."

I took her hand and kissed it.

"Eléna, I have to tell you the truth"—at least part of it—"I am not the person you think I am."

"I know that."

"You do?"

"Of course. The man I met at Don Silvestre explained about your brother."

"No, no, it's not just that, it's..."

"Yes?"

It was impossible. If I told her the truth, she would run screaming from the house. But I hated living a lie. My entire life had been a lie, and with her I wished to lay my soul naked.

"There are things about me that I cannot reveal, things that you would never understand, some that would make you hate me. But there is one truth that you may depend upon. From the moment I first saw you, I loved you."

"And I, you."

She said it so simply, I was caught by surprise.

"Did you want me to hide my feelings?" she asked.

"It's impossible for us, you're betrothed to another."

I was holding onto her hand. I drew her closer and she pulled away. She walked around the courtyard for a moment.

"Don't you find it strange," she said, "how we of the higher class of society have less freedom? Our possessions, even our names, entrap us. A man and a woman of common blood can love and marry whom they like." She turned and faced me. "My uncle can make me marry Luis, but he can never make me love him. I do not hate Luis, and I believe he truly loves me. He has refused offers of marriage from families whose daughters have larger dowries and certainly fairer looks. But for me, marriage to him would be a prison. That's why I was willing to go to another type of prison, a convent, where at least I would have had the freedom to read books and write what I have the vanity to call poetry."

"Your poems are the songs of angels."

"Fine words, Don Carlos, but I hardly think you have heard of my poems all the way in Spain. My poems have been rarely published even in the colony."

"You do yourself an injustice. I was given this book to read when I was sailing from Seville."

I showed her a book of poems I had printed for her.

She shook her head, her eyes glowing. "I wrote that years ago. There must be a book or two still in existence. And it made it all the way to Seville?"

"To the whole world. I'm certain there is a copy right now in the queen's boudoir in Madrid."

"More likely on the Inquisition's evidence table. Who gave you the book?"

"I don't know the man's name. He was reading a book in a cantina and offered it to me when he learned I was to take a sea voyage." Eh, amigos, do lies flow like honey off my tongue?

I heard a noise at the wall bordering the street. A head popped into view for just the briefest moment before the man dropped back down. I ran out the gate, but the man was on a horse galloping away before I was able to seize him.

Eléna came out behind me. "I recognize him. One of Luis's servants set to spy on me."

She left without further word. Concerned for her reputation, I did not try to stop her. Under ordinary circumstances, I would soon be receiving Luis's seconds to deliver the challenge for a duel, and I would welcome the opportunity to kill him. I suspected, though, that the challenge would not come. Not because Luis feared me, but because of the scandal it would create so soon after I had saved Eléna.

I stood for a moment in the courtyard and closed my eyes, listening again to her saying that she loved me. But who did she love? The martyr-hero Don Carlos? Or the poor lépero boy grown into a notorious bandit?

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

We used the hired coach to pick up the old caballero and take him to the party. I was very nervous, more than I had been in any other social situation in my life. Mateo had thoroughly investigated the arrangements for the party and had a plan for every contingency. He was still caught up in the idea that we were all actors in a play that he had written. He even had written in a part for the lépero boy, Jaime, to play that night.

"If the old man recognizes that I am not Don Carlos, what will we do?" I asked, as the carriage wheels brought us closer and closer to Don Silvestre's door. I already knew his answers. I had bemoaned the questions over and over, and finally he was just responding with curtness.

"Murder him."

"And Isabella? If we encounter the Bitch of Babylon?"

"Murder her."

Fine advice, none of which he and I were mentally capable of carrying out, although I would be sorely tempted in regard to Isabella. Mateo had learned that the Church had agreed to annul her marriage to Don Julio, and the woman had married a Zacatecas silver king within a year of the don's death. Naturally, she had a house, not only in the City of Silver, but in the capital. As best as Mateo could discover, she had the Ciudad Mexico house torn down and was in the process of building a palace built to rival the viceroy's. He assumed that she would stay in Zacatecas during the renovations, but he was not certain. As for myself, I was certain that she would be in the party's reception line, ready to clutch her chest and scream the moment she saw us.

Mateo doubted she would recognize either of us. He had removed his beard and left only a rather large mustache. Like me, his hair was closely cropped. The putas at the tavern where we had been staying had dyed his hair and mustache red. With a red eye patch, red hat, red doublet, and red pants, he was as inconspicuous as a peacock in a flock of pigeons.

"Flamboyance defines my disguise," he said earlier, as I gawked at the clothes he intended to wear to the viceroy's ball. "I learned the art of disguise when I had to play several roles in the same play. If Isabella sees me, she will not recognize me for the don's friend."

"You will hide in plain sight?"

"Exactly so."

Eh, we had seen Mateo on stage, had we not, amigos? He is a fine actor—sometimes. Other times he commits the actor's sin of overdramatizing his role. Like everything else about Mateo, there was no middle ground. When he was good on stage, he was the best. And when he was bad, Dios mio, he incited riots.

If the Book of Fates determined that Isabella would be at the party, I hoped Isabella would, as usual, be too caught up in herself to recognize us.

"I will kill myself if I am exposed before Eléna."

Mateo twirled one of the ends of his mustache. "Compadre, your problem is that you do not accept women for what we really need them for. You want her to be puta and angel. I'm happy with just the woman of sin."

When we pulled up in front of the gate to Don Silvestre's house, I waited inside the coach while Mateo went to fetch the don. I tapped my knee nervously with the tip of my dagger, more inclined to cut my own throat than the old man's if he exposed me.

The only light at the gate was a large candle in a bronze and glass holder. It threw no light more than a couple of feet, but I skulked inside the dark coach anyway.

Despite my apprehensions, there had been one encouraging event. Miguel de Soto had shown up unexpectedly at my door. Profusely begging my pardon, he said his unnamed associates were cutting me in as a partner. But the ante had risen: I needed fifty thousand pesos to buy in.

Provoking Luis had tipped the scale. Realizing the viceroy would never permit him to kill me in a duel, he wanted to break me financially then put a dagger in my back. It was an enormous amount of money, and I agreed to only thirty thousand. I gave him three thousand pesos in gold ducats to show good faith and told him I would have the rest in a few days. Handing over the gold, I asked for more details concerning my investment.

"The price of maize is soaring," he said.

It was. Maize had all but vanished in the markets—when the warehouses were full. My new servants grumbled about it. No doubt it cut into the profits they made cheating me on food purchases.

"My partners own the maize in the warehouses. I control its distribution."

They were keeping it out of the marketplace—literally starving people—in order to drive the price up. When the price reached its peak, they would flood their brokers with grain and reap a prodigious profit. I had suspected this, but to hear it put bluntly increased my quandary about harming Eléna. Evil manipulation of the staple could not be done without the knowledge and assent of the viceroy.

When I heard Mateo and the don, I peered out the coach window, tense. Mateo let the old man go through the gate first and hung back to fasten it.

Don Silvestre came alone toward the coach, and I opened the door.

"Carlos—" he began.

Someone shot out of the darkness and pawed at the old man's face. The don tried to grab him and the assailant shoved him back, sending him staggering back on weak knees. Mateo caught the don as he fell backward.

"Thief!" Don Silvestre yelled. "He took my eyepiece!"

I shot out of the carriage and joined Mateo and the carriage driver in a pursuit of the thief. It was hopeless, the thief had disappeared. To my relief Jaime the Lépero had played his role well.

I exchanged looks with Mateo as we hurried back to where the don was waiting by the carriage. This was the test. Taking a deep breath, I walked straight up to the old man and gave him an abrazo, a great hug.

"Don Silvestre," Mateo said, "how regretful it is that you two meet after all these years in the midst of this dreadful theft."

"My eyeglass, he took my eyeglass—and it was my only one. Only God knows when I can get a replacement."

"I heard that an eyeglass grinder had come aboard the last treasure fleet and took samples of glasses to the mining country," Mateo said. "We shall look into it, eh, Carlos."

"Carlos." The old man patted my face with his palm.

"We shall not let this tragic theft ruin the reunion of you and Carlos," Mateo said. "Off to the viceroy's palace," he told the driver, "the entire city is awaiting the guest of honor."

Mateo kept up a continuous flow of chatter all the way to the palace. What little I said was in such soft tones, the half deaf don missed most of it. Along the way, Mateo lit a tobacco twist with a candle kept lit in a glass enclosure on the side of the carriage. He deliberately held the candle up to illuminate my face in the dark coach. The ball would be brilliantly lit, and we were better off testing the don's eyesight here than in front of a hundred people.

"What do you think, Don Silvestre?" Mateo asked. "Has Carlos changed much since you saw him as a teenager?"

The don leaned forward and squinted at me. "The spit and image of his father," the don said. "I would have picked him out of an army of a thousand as his father's son."

I had to resist the impulse to cross myself and thank God aloud for making the old caballero so vain he would not admit to the infirmities of old age.

One test had been passed. But I knew the Dark Sisters who weaved our fates were not to be so easily appeased. A strange feeling gripped me as we passed through the palace gates. I had always wondered who I really was. Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, asks in the Odyssey: "Does any man truly know who his father is?" I had asked such questions my whole life long, about my father, my mother, and a loco old matrone who dressed in black and sought to drink my blood.

Well, the fray often said God's greatest gift was unanswered prayers, and at last I understood the wisdom in that dictum.

Now I feared God would answer those questions.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE

I had attended the ribald parties of Seville's theater people, but this was the first grand society ball I had attended. We were greeted by an officer of the guard who stepped smartly in his magnificent uniform as he escorted us to the palace entrance. There, aides to the viceroy were waiting to accompany us to the ballroom. Both aides looked askance at Mateo's crimson garb and eye patch. Mateo's hard-edged swordsman comportment shined through the silk clothes. Had he not been with me, the guest of honor, no doubt they would have been more inclined to call the capitán of the guard before permitting him into the ballroom.

The hall mirrors leading to the ballroom glittered from the candlelight and torches as well as reflecting the brightly trimmed uniforms of the honor guards lining the way.

At the end of the hall, we passed through open doors into a three-story ballroom that could have housed several residences comparable to my rented one, grounds included. Like the mirrored hallway, it blazed with candlelight and torches. The ceiling, fittings, and moldings glistened with silver and gilt, and for a moment I was stunned by the ballroom's magnificence. I found it hard to feign the arrogant indifference of a hidalgo.

Several hundred people drank and talked and strolled around the floor. Still, every eye turned to me as I paused at the top of the sweeping marble staircase leading down to the ballroom floor. I had never in my life felt so out of place, and I was sweating from every pore.

The viceroy came up beside me. With a grand gesture, he proclaimed, "Señoras, señoritas, and caballeros, I present Don Carlos Vasquez de Monterey, the hero of Veracruz."

The audience lined up on two sides of the room, leaving only a narrow walkway between. The orchestra struck up music. The viceroy took my arm and guided me down the steps. I was to be paraded through the party so that everyone could get a close look at me.

Ay, how many in the room could identify me? Was one of the fat merchants I had robbed along the Jalapa road waiting to greet me? A bishop whose clothes I had stolen, along with his purse and mule? A lady from whose neck I had ripped a pearl necklace?

Life is a circle and as I listened to the applause from the audience, I had the terrible feeling that the victim of every evil deed I had ever committed had assembled in the ballroom to expose me before the woman I loved.

I moved stiffly down the steps, a frozen smile on my face, my mind a shambles. I kept a tight hold on Don Silvestre's arm to slow our step. My eye had caught a familiar figure on the other side of the room and I almost stumbled.

Isabella.

I saw a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. I assumed the red caballero, my compadre, had just fled the room.

Fighting the impulse to run, walking down the aisle, nodding at the smiling people on both sides, I knew it would soon turn ugly. I feared it in my bones. Isabella was on the far end of the receiving line. When I reached her, all hell would break loose. I did not care what Mateo said about her not recognizing me without a beard. She was nothing if not cunning. My eyes would give her pause. She would put her Chinese fan up to her face and her eyes would narrow as she searched my face. There would be a moment of puzzlement, then astonishment, and horror that brought forth a scream.

Even my friend, Mateo, who had faced a thousand heathen swords, or so he said, had fled the witch.

Eléna stood next to Luis. She smiled her love. Luis' face held no expression, but I did not need a sorcerer to divine his thoughts. When Isabella began screaming and the party goers turned rabid against me, Luis would be the first to unsheathe his dagger.

My worse nightmare was that I was to be exposed in front of Eléna. What would she think when her hero was dragged to the dungeon by palace guards? The next time she saw my head it would be impaled atop the city gate.

My instinct to run was overwhelming but my knees were buckling. All the while I drew closer to Isabella. Thoughts raced through my mind. Was this how it would end? Instead of bringing down Luis and Ramon, I would end up being exposed and arrested? Where was Ramon? No doubt he was in the audience somewhere. Would he recognize the mestizo boy he had tried to kill half a lifetime ago. Would he join Isabella in exposing my frauds?

A woman screamed.

Isabella dashed into the open aisle I was coming down with Don Silvestre and the viceroy.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Her dress was on fire.

As men beat at the flames, I saw a figure in red disappearing into the back of the crowd. I grinned like a monkey, most impolite considering the lady's distress, but I could not suppress it.

Eh, amigos, did you really think that my old compadre would abandon me?

Sadly, the fire did not consume Isabella, merely the back of her dress and some petticoats. However, it did require that she retire from the party. She left in a state of hysterics. The assumption was that she had gotten too close to a candle.

"Music," the viceroy instructed an aide, "tell the orchestra to play gay music. I want people to dance, to forget this unfortunate incident."

He apologized profusely and spoke darkly of Isabella. "That woman will not be invited again to the palace." He leaned closer and whispered. "Her former husband was a marrano."

As the dancing began, with Luis and Eléna leading the procession, I left Don Silvestre with friends of his and faded back against a wall. The silly grin had faded from my face. My nerves were raw, and I struggled to get my breath back. I looked around to see if there was anyone else I recognized. Ramon was not present as far as I could tell.

I grabbed a goblet of wine to calm my nerves and then another. And another. Soon my head felt lighter. But my heart was still heavy from watching Luis and Eléna dance time and again. She glanced at me once and I smiled. I knew he was deliberately monopolizing her dancing.

Stepping aside to avoid servants with a food cart, I brushed against a man.

"Perdón!" I said.

"It is I who should beg for pardon," the man said. "Like Agesilan of Colchos who mounted a hippogriff to save the beauteous Diana, you deserve all of the praise Constantinople can reap upon you."

The man looked vaguely familiar to me. Not as if I knew him, but as if I should have known him. There was something about his features, his eyes, that stirred a memory in me.

"Thank you, señor, but I'm afraid that I'm not as lucky as Agesilan or any of the other caballeros of old. You see, in the tales of old, the hero always wed the beautiful woman that he had saved. In my case..."

"You're right. Instead of the hero, the princess will wed a villain."

The wine and the man's sympathetic remark loosened my tongue.

"Truer words were never spoken. Eléna must marry a man who believes a woman should be broken like a horse."

"I see you know Don Luis well despite your short time in the city. And I'm afraid your assessment of him is correct. Poor Eléna. She was willing to hide away in a convent to avoid marriage him because he will never permit her the freedom to read and write. And she's a fine poet. The words that are smothered inside her will be a loss to the world. But you must not put the entire blame on Luis. He was raised poorly for the heir of a great name and title. People believe it is his father's fault. The father is a notoriously bad gambler. A bad poet. Even a drunk. If it wasn't for Luis, the family coat of arms would be for sale to swine merchants."

"Eh, I've heard the father was a bad one, a man who squandered his wealth on gambling and women. Only his title has kept him from the poorhouse. But that is no excuse for the son. There are those of us who were born with so much less and who have had to deal with so much more adversity than a father who was a ne'er-do-well."

"Of course, and you are one of them. Eléna has told me how you sacrificed yourself for your older brother."

"I—you know Eléna?"

"I am also a writer of poetry. Though unlike Eléna, I am a writer of bad poetry. But our mutual interest over the years has given us the opportunity to speak many times. To the point where I count her as a friend."

"Then as a friend, how do we keep her from marrying that blackguard Luis?"

"Ah, amigo, you are new to the city. Be here awhile and you will find out that what Luis wants, he gets. He performed many services for the viceroy to gain Eléna's hand after she refused him repeatedly. No, I am afraid nothing can be done. Hopefully Eléna will have the courage and determination to insist upon writing her poetry after marriage."

"If there is a marriage," I said, darkly.

The man patted me on the shoulder. "You should not speak in such terms. If it gets back to Luis, he will have to challenge you. You showed great courage in Veracruz, but dueling is another sport. Besides being a fine swordsman, Luis is a scoundrel who doesn't always play fair. If he could not beat you honorably, he would have you murdered by assailants. I speak now as a friend and admirer of Eléna's and a man grateful for your services."

"You must know Luis well," I said.

"Very well. I'm his father."

I sipped my wine slowly, watching the dancers. I knew of him, of course. Don Eduardo Montez de la Cerda. After a moment I turned back to him.

"Don't take offense," he said, "I truly am Eléna's friend. I love her like the daughter I never had." He looked away from me. "I love her like the son I wish I had, instead of the one I deserved."

What I heard in his voice was not pity for himself but regret—and recrimination toward himself.

"I speak to you as a friend, Don Carlos, because I know Eléna is your friend." He locked eyes with me. "Perhaps in a way that must remain unspoken, she is more than a friend. And because of your own sad family situation"—he saluted me with his goblet—"my lips are also no doubt steered by the wine I've imbibed this day. I feel I can reveal a little of the troubles in my heart. I truly do wish that something would happen to prevent the marriage, but it is impossible. And I do not blame Luis for all that he became. Luis never had the father he deserved. Nor mother. His mother died while he was relatively young. His grandmother, my mother, dominated the household. My own father had been weak and produced a weak son. My mother made up for my weaknesses by instilling her ruthless ambitions on Luis when she failed to drive them into me. While this was happening, I hid my head deeper in the wine keg and the card tables. Each year as Luis became stronger, I became weaker." He saluted me again with his goblet. "And that, Don Carlos, is the sad story of my life."

I became aware of something as he spoke. "Eléna asked you to speak to me. She told you of my love for her."

"Yes. She loves and respects you enough to want to ensure that you live a long and happy life. That will not occur if you antagonize Luis with attention toward her. She will not dance with you tonight, nor see you again except in public. This is to protect you."

I started to tell him that I did not need her protection when he grabbed my arm.

"Ah, my mother has spotted us talking. Come along and meet her." He guided me toward an old woman seated in a chair across the room. "You will learn more about Luis in a few minutes with her than pondering for a year."

I followed along, but my attention was drawn to Eléna. She was dancing with another partner, and I smiled at her as she swirled by. She gave me a small smile and quickly turned her head. It took a moment to clear my head and remember that his mother was the old matrona who wanted me dead.

"My mother probably wants to meet you because Luis has mentioned you unfavorably. Don't be offended if she seems like she is sizing you up for the scaffold. She has worked as hard for this marriage with Eléna as Luis has."

Could I have avoided the confrontation? Yes. But after spending half of my life fleeing from the old woman's unnamed wrath, I permitted my feet to move forward.

A humorless rasp of a chuckle escaped my lips. "Your mother and Luis are vipers."

He shot me a look. Regardless of his candor about his own life, it was not gentlemanly of me to speak disrespectfully of his mother. In other circumstances he would have called me to the dueling field for such a remark.

"Do not blame my mother. Any mother who birthed a son like me would wonder why God had damned her."

The old woman's eyes met mine as we approached, and despite having steeled my nerves, I was jolted. The old matrona sent my anger racing. This woman had sent Ramon to kill Fray Antonio. Overcome by rage, I jerked my arm from Don Eduardo's at the same time the old woman gaped and started up from her seat.

"Wha—what's the matter?" Don Eduardo asked.

An audible gasp of pain emitted from the old woman. She took a step, her face ashen, her eyes wide, her lips trying to form words. She fell forward, collapsing on the floor.

Don Eduardo rushed to her, crying her name. In a second Luis was beside him. I pushed through the crowd that had immediately gathered around her. Lying on the floor, she refused offers of aid and gestured her son and grandson closer to her trembling lips. The old woman whispered her last words. As she spoke, both Don Eduardo and Luis looked at me with as much shock as the old woman had when she recognized me.

I glared back at them, defiantly. I do not know what words were spoken, but I know they were to throw my life into more turmoil. She had whispered a secret to her son and grandson, a terrible secret that had plagued my life from the day I was born. While I had not heard the words, I had felt them. They twisted my heart and raised the hair on the back of my neck.

My eyes went from the two kneeling beside the old woman to a mirror behind them. I saw my own reflection.

And knew the truth.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO

The old woman's eyes haunted me in a troubled sleep that came after hours of even more troubled consciousness.

Mateo was not at the rented house when I returned from the viceroy's ball. I had left while the room was still buzzing about the death of the matrona. Eléna had tried to ask me a question as I pushed through the crowd, and I had ignored her.

At my house a message awaited me that Mateo had gone to "comfort" Don Silvestre's daughter. Mateo's idea of comforting the woman was to give her pleasure in bed. And take a bit himself.

A gallery of the dead—Fray Antonio, the Healer, Don Julio, Inez, and Juana—shared my night, invading my dreams and waking moments. Only the Healer seemed at peace. The others were restless because they were unavenged.

But mostly I saw the old woman. The Fates had brought me full circle. Back to the woman who had started it all in Veracruz. I never understood the old woman's hatred for me. I always assumed that it was a blood feud. But I no longer believed that. Looking at the three of them, the dying old woman with her son and grandson, I had gained an insight into the mystery that had dominated my life. And felt the earth heating up under my feet.

Early in the morning a servant brought me a message.

Don Eduardo was waiting in his carriage. He asked that I take a ride with him so that we might speak. The summons was neither expected nor a surprise. It was just another hand the Dark Sisters had dealt me. I joined him in the carriage.

"Do you mind if we ride along the Alameda?" he asked. "I enjoy it in the cool of the morning. Quiet and peaceful. So unlike the parade of male egos and female vanities that dominate it in the afternoon."

I sat quietly, listening to the carriage wheels, not really looking at him nor avoiding his eyes. A strange calmness had grasped me despite my troubled night. I actually felt more at peace than I had felt since I began a fugitive life in Veracruz half a lifetime ago.

"You have not expressed condolences at the death of my mother, but I suppose that is to be expected."

I met his eye. "Your mother was evil. She will rot in hell."

"I am afraid, Cristóbal, that we, and Luis, shall join her. But you are right about her. I actually hated her myself. One is supposed to love and honor one's mother, but I never truly loved her, nor her, me. She hated me because I was too much like my father, too much inclined to words than actions. He brought her to the New World because he had nearly beggared them in the old. She sent him to an early grave with her hate. When I turned out to be worse than my father, she set me aside in her mind and kept the reins of the family tightly in her fist.

"Have you seen Pedro Calderón's dramatic comedia, La hija del aire?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I was told of the play in Seville."

The Daughter of the Air was said to be Calderón's masterpiece. It was the story of the Babylonian warrior queen, Semiramis. Her greed for power led her to conceal and imprison her own son when it came time to ascend the throne. She then assumed the throne herself, dressed as a man, impersonating her son.

"If my mother had been able to get rid of me and wear my face, she would have done so."

"Murder you? As she has tried to murder me?" The words were wrapped in bitterness that suddenly welled up in me.

"I have always been weak." He spoke not to me but to the open window of the carriage.

"Why was it so important to murder me? Why was it so important that Fray Antonio had to be murdered to find me?"

"Fray Antonio,"—he shook his head—"a good man. I didn't know my mother was involved. When I heard he was murdered by the boy he raised, I assumed the truth of the accusation."

"Assumed the truth? Or hid behind it?"

"I told you I was not a good father. To Luis. Or to you."

I knew he was my father when I saw my reflection in the mirror while he and Luis were kneeling at the side of the old woman. Looking from their faces to mine had brought home the truth of the disturbance that had plagued me each time I looked at their faces.

"It doesn't make any sense. I am your son, but I'm also just another mestizo bastard in a land full of such bastardos. To have lain with my mother, Maria, and made her with child... that's no more than what thousands of other españols have done. Why would this bastardo create enough hate to spawn murder?"

"Your mother's name was Verónica, not Maria." He spoke the name quietly.

"Verónica." I rolled the name off of my tongue. "Was my mother Spanish?"

"No, she was india. Very proud india. My family—your Spanish family—is related to royalty. My grandfather was a cousin to King Carlos. Your mother was of royalty, too, indio royalty. Her blood traced back to one of Montezuma's sisters."

"Eh, that's wonderful. But that does not make me a prince of two races, but merely another bastardo without land or title."

"I was deeply in love with your mother, a lovely flower. I have never seen another woman who had her natural beauty and grace. Had she been born in Spain, she would have ended up as the concubine of a prince or duke." He had stopped talking to me and had gone back to talking to the window.

"Tell me about my mother."

"She was the only woman I ever loved. She was the daughter of a cacique of a village on our hacienda. Like most other hacendados, we were rarely at the ranch. But after my father died, when I was twenty years old, my mother exiled me to the hacienda for a time. She wanted to get me out of the city and what she considered corrupt influences, to get me away from books and poetry and make me what she considered to be a real man, un hombre. There was a man at the hacienda, the majordomo, whom my mother considered to be just the person to turn her boy into a wearer of big spurs."

"Ramon de Alva."

"Yes, Ramon. Then, just a hacienda manager. Eventually one of the richest men in New Spain, a man not just with the viceroy's ear, but who knows the dirty secrets of half the noble families in the colony. And from what I've heard, one who has filled Don Diego's pockets many times."

"Little of it honestly gained."

Don Eduardo shrugged. "Honesty is a gem with many facets. It sparkles differently for each of us."

"Try telling that to the thousands of indios who died in the mines and the tunnel project." There was still poison in my words, but my own heart was slowly softening toward the man who was my first father. He did not seem to harbor malice. Instead, his greatest sin was that he looked away—and walked away—from evil.

He grinned with resignation. "As you can see from the human toad who sits beside you, not even the renowned Ramon de Alva could create a miracle and make a decent man of me. My mother wanted me to love the smell of gold, while I instead sniffed roses. It was not saddle leather I wanted between my legs but the soft touch of a woman. Obeying my mother's command, I went to the hacienda and came under the tutelage of Ramon. To my mother's eternal horror, instead of getting me away from trouble in the city, I carried it with me like an old trunk. I opened that trunk the first time I saw your mother.

"Verónica was coming to church the first time I saw her. As the hacendado, it was my duty to greet the flock as they came for Sunday service. I was standing next to the village priest when she came forward with her mother."

"The village priest was Fray Antonio."

"Yes, Fray Antonio. The fray and I became close, like brothers, during my time on the hacienda. He had an interest in the classics as I did. I had brought almost my entire library with me, and I gave him a number of books as a gift."

"They were branded with your initial. The same books that the fray used to teach me Latin and the classics."

"Bueno. I am glad they saw good use. As I was saying, I was standing by the church door when Verónica came forward. When I looked into her eyes that first time, my heart was torn out of my chest faster than any Aztec priest ever ripped the heart from a sacrifice victim. We live in a world in which who we choose to marry is decided upon rationally, but there is no rational judgment involved in who we love. I was completely helpless. I saw her. I loved her. The fact that she was an india and I was a Spaniard with a centuries-old title mattered not. No alchemist, no sorcerer, could have concocted a potion that put me deeper into a state of love enchantment than I went into the moment I saw her. I even told Ramon about my affection for the girl."

My father shook his head. "Ramon encouraged my feelings for her. Not in an honorable way, of course, but in the way Spaniards look at india girls, with the eye in their crotch. He never really understood me, or my affection for Verónica. I truly loved her, worshipped her. I would have been content living on the hacienda for the rest of my life at the feet of your mother. Ramon never understood because he is not capable of love. Nor was my mother. Had their ages been closer, he would have made a fine consort for her. They would never have married because of their different social positions, but they could have lain in bed at night and excited each other with their passions of greed and corruption."

Don Eduardo turned back to the window. "Fray Antonio, poor devil. He should never have been a priest. He had the sort of loving heart toward all people that makes a saint, but he also had desires that were human. He was a friend and companion to Verónica and me as we trod the road of young love, discreetly leaving us alone in green meadows when we lay down to consummate our feelings for each other. If the fray had been more Spanish and less a humanist, tragedy would have been avoided."

"It should be some comfort to him in his martyr's grave that he was too good a man," I said, not hiding the sarcasm in my voice.

He turned back to me, his sad and lonely eyes moist. "You want me to take responsibility for the fray's death. Yes, Cristóbal, it is just another one of many mortal sins I shall answer for. Did you ever wonder how you came to be named Cristóbal?"

I shook my head.

"One of your late great-great-great-ancestors was a Cristóbal. Of all the marqués' in our bloodline, he was the one I admired the most. After his death, no other marqués in our family was given his name because he had left a stain on the family honor. He married a Moorish princess, a blood taint that took two centuries to purge."

"I'm honored," I said, without feeling. "How appropriate that another with a blood taint should bear the name."

"I understand your feelings." He peered closely at me. "You have led a rare life, perhaps the most unusual in the history of the colony. You have walked the streets as an outcast and ridden in a carriage as a caballero. You must know things about the peoples and places of New Spain that the viceroy and his advisors cannot even imagine."

"I know so little about life that I actually believe in the ultimate goodness of people. Fortunately for mankind, the world is not entirely composed of people like you and your mother."

My words seemed to strike a chord with him. Hurt was expressed in his eyes and lips. "I am the harshest critic of myself. Not even Luis or my mother were able to point out my deficiencies better than I have been able to myself. But coming from you, my son who is a stranger, it cuts me deeper than from the others. I sense that you have seen so much of life that you have knowledge and wisdom beyond your years, and that you see my faults more clearly than they do because you are so innocent yourself."

"Innocent?" I laughed. "You know my name is Cristóbal. But I am also known as Cristo the Bastardo. Liar and thief are my better qualities."

"Yes, Cristóbal, but which of your many wrongful deeds were not done under coercion? You have the excuse of ignorance and necessity to justify your actions. What excuse do those of us who were born to luxury have for our excesses? Our greed?"

"Eh, thank you, Don Eduardo." I shrugged. "I am relieved that I am a more honorable scoundrel than the rest of you."

He turned back to the window. It provided less animosity than me.

"I was young and foolish. Not that much has changed. Today I am just more older and foolish, but in a different way. In those days my head was full of love, and I thought that nothing else mattered. But, of course, it did. As nature would have it, the consummation of our love resulted in a child. Such a fool I was. Such a fool. My mother was visiting at the hacienda when you were born. You were only hours old when I told her and Ramon the news.

"I still remember the horror spreading across her features as I told her. For the first time in my life, I had felt power in dealing with my mother. When she understood what I had done, she turned purple. I actually feared that she would fall dead on the floor. In one of the those strange twists of fate that have plagued our lives since that day, she dropped dead at the sight of you, the child she thought she had killed."

"How did Maria come to be called my mother?"

"My boyish glee at shocking my own mother had worse consequences than I could ever have imagined, consequences that would have taxed the mind of the devil to conjure. My mother immediately sent Ramon out to kill Verónica and the baby."

"Holy Mother of God."

"No, unholy mother, my unholy mother. Ramon went out to kill her and the baby. One of the servants overheard my mother's plans and ran and told Fray Antonio. The good fray was resourceful, if nothing else. Another woman had given birth within hours of Verónica birthing you."

"Maria."

"Yes, Maria. She gave birth to a stillborn child. It was said to be the fray's child. I don't know; I suppose it was. Like you, it was a boy."

"Verónica switched babies."

"Yes, she switched babies. She gave you to Maria and took the dead baby. She ran into the jungle with the dead baby and Ramon pursuing her. She came to a cliff overlooking a river. With Ramon almost to her, she threw herself and the baby over the cliff."

With tears flooding my eyes, I reached over and slapped Don Eduardo. He stared at me with the same sort of shock I had seen on his mother's face when she saw me standing next to him and recognized me.

"And what did you do while my mother was sacrificing her life for your sins? Playing cards? Drinking wine? Wondering what india girl you could use to shock your mother with again?"

He stared at me in agony, a whipped dog. I could imagine the rest of the story. A hurried marriage to a suitable woman of Spanish blood. The birth of an heir.

"You've left one thing out of your story, haven't you? You have not told me all of the truth. You have not told me why my birth was different than the army of bastardos left behind by you Spanish who dug your spurs into india girls."

The coach came to a halt. I didn't notice it, but we had pulled through the entrance of a home. There was something familiar about the house. I realized it almost at the same moment the coach door opened.

It was the house where Isabella had her trysts with Ramon de Alva. The house that Mateo and I had entered disguised as women to beat the truth out of Ramon.

The other coach door opened.

Ramon was on one side. Luis on the other.

I looked to my father. Tears flowed down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Cristóbal. I told you. I am not a strong man."

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE

"Cristo the Bastardo, I salute you."

My admirer was Ramon de Alva. Sitting in the carriage, I had no opportunity to draw my sword. Not that it would have served me well. Besides Ramon and Luis, there were two tough-looking hombres I took to be Ramon's henchmen and the carriage driver to deal with.

They took me into the house and strung me up to the carriage wheel-sized candleholder that hung from a chain to the ceiling. They put a noose around my neck and a chair under my feet. The irony of being subjected to the same torture Mateo and I had put Ramon through was not lost on me.

Once I was tied, only Ramon and Luis stayed in the room. My father never got out of the carriage.

"I salute you," Ramon said, "because you have risen above all adversity. Except for now, of course. Who would have imagined that a lépero boy would become the colony's most notorious bandit? And the bandit would become it's most celebrated hero, a man of such courage that the viceroy gives a grand ball so the entire city can honor him for fighting off pirates."

"Chingo tu madre!" It was the most provocative insult I could think of as I stood on my tiptoes with a nose around my neck and my time on earth in short supply.

"As I told you, amigo, it was your mother who got fucked."

He kicked the chair out from under me. My body dropped for a split second, falling just a few inches. When it jerked to a stop, it felt as if my head was being wrenched from my shoulders. The jerking tightened the noose around my neck like an iron garrote. I could not breathe. I could not think. The rest of my body was electrified. My legs shook uncontrollably. Through the fog I heard my father yelling. The chair was put back under my feet. I swayed dizzily as I gasped for air and tried to maintain my balance on the chair.

"You said he would not be hurt!" Don Eduardo shouted.

"Get him out of here," Ramon told Luis.

Ramon walked around my chair, a jungle cat pacing around a staked-out lamb, calculating which part of the body it would rip apart first.

Luis joined him a moment later. "When we are through with this one, I'm going to send my father to his grave. My grandmother is not here to deal with him, and I have nothing but contempt for him."

Ramon took a gold coin from his pocket. He held it up to show it to me.

"Do you recognize this coin?" he asked me.

I sputtered an insult, something from my street days, but it came out as gibberish because the noose was still too tight. Why was he showing me the coin? Why didn't he just kill me?

"An interesting coin." Ramon examined the coin, turning it over. "A very special coin. Do you know why it's a special coin, Cristo?"

"Why are we delaying?" Luis asked. "Let's torture the truth out of him and then kill him."

Eh, this was my brother talking. I gibbered an incoherent insult to him.

"Patience, compadre," Ramon said to Luis, "remember that patience is a virtue. This is a tough hombre we are dealing with. Eh, Cristo, you are a tough hombre, no? You have survived everything thrown at you and come out stronger. Until now."

He kicked the chair out from under me. I strangled and kicked. Again, it felt as if my head was going to separate from my shoulders. After a moment the chair came back under my feet.

"You know what the worse part is of this dilemma you are in? Each time I kick the chair from your feet, your neck stretches a little more. After three or four times it will snap. But no, not with the big break your neck gets when you drop on a gallows. This fall will not kill you, not right away. Amigo, it will leave you crippled. You will not be able to move your arms and legs. You will be totally helpless. Not even able to feed yourself. You will die slowly, begging those around you to kill you because you can't do it yourself."

Ramon spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully so I would not fail to understand completely what he was saying. Despite the noose around my neck, I was horrified at what he was saying. I had the courage to die, but I did not have the courage to be totally paralyzed and die slowly, like a piece of meat rotting.

Ramon showed me the coin again.

"I want to talk to you about this coin. As I told you, it is a very unusual coin."

I was completely mystified as to why he was so interested in the coin.

"Do you know where I got the coin? From my brother-in-law, Miguel. Do you know where he got it?"

He looked up at me. I stared back passively. His foot went to the chair, and I nodded frantically.

"Me," I gasped.

"Ah, you see, Luis, he has decided to cooperate with us." Ramon grinned sadly up at me with contrived regret. "Luis is so impatient, always in a hurry. He wanted to kill you immediately. You have me to thank for the moments your life has been extended."

He flipped the coin in the air and caught it. He examined it again, turning it over in his hand. "Sí, a very unusual coin. Do know why it is unusual?"

I shook my head.

"You don't know? Eh, I believe you, I didn't think you knew. One reason it is unusual is that it is presently the only thing in the world keeping you alive." He tossed the coin and caught it again. "If it were not for this coin, I would have let Luis run his sword through you the moment the coach door opened."

He bounced the coin in his hand. "To you, it is just a gold coin. It appears to be exactly like so many other gold coins of the same size and weight. But, amigo, if you look at it carefully, examine it closely, you will see that there is a difference. Whose face is on the gold coins minted where the Spanish flag flies anywhere in the world?" His foot went back to the chair. "Tell me, amigo, whose face?"

"The king," I gagged.

"Sí, our Most Catholic Majesty." He held up the coin to me. "But you see, if you look at the coin, the king's face is not on it. It is another face. Do you know whose face? No, I know you don't. It is the not very handsome features of one Roberto Baltazar, Count de Nuevo Leon. Not a caballero of one of the old houses of Spain, but what we call our silver nobility, a mule team driver who staked a prospector who found a vein of pure silver. Enough for a man with mule mierda on his boots to buy a grand title.

"Count Roberto, besides having the vanity of a purchased title, turned some of the silver he hoarded into gold coinage for his own private use, with his features on them. He delivered the silver bars to the mint and had the mint stamp out gold coins in exchange for the silver."

I was still completely in the dark as to why I was being told a story about a rich man who wanted his face on coins.

"Do you know what happened to Count Roberto's coins?"

It hit me. Now I knew why my past had crashed down so quickly after the old woman identified me at the ball.

"Ah, I can see that you have grasped the situation. A man has arrived in the city and is spending privately minted gold coins. Eh, the merchants don't care, gold is gold. But these coins were stolen. They were stolen with enough other gold, silver, and gems to ransom a king of Christendom from the Moors. Now, amigo, you see the way the cards are falling? You gave a large number of these stolen coins to Miguel. That means you are the thief who emptied the mint."

When I went into our horde to get the money to finance my revenge, I had grabbed a sack of gold coins. It had been no accident that I had inadvertently grabbed the bag containing the Count Roberto's ugly face. The Fates and Lady Fortune were guiding my hand, laughing as they did.

"Now you understand why I do not succumb to my young compadre's impatience to have you dead? He worries that a street beggar will claim his inheritance and his woman. Being of tainted blood, you would not comprehend the abhorrence of those with pure blood to be connected in any manner to those of your kind."

Ramon shook his finger at me. "It is fortunate that we were able to grab you before the viceroy's soldados did. The merchants who you gave the coins to have been questioned and identified you as the one who passed them. Now you are a very smart hombre, Cristo. You have to know that no matter what promises we make, we are ultimately going to kill you once we have our hands on the treasure. Your choices are clear. You can tell us where the treasure is, lead us to it if necessary, and live a short time in the hopes that we will relent from killing you, or you will miraculously escape, or—" he put his foot back on the chair—"you will die slowly, not able to move your arms or legs."

He was right. My choice was clear. I had to die to keep them from profiting from the treasure and hoped that Mateo punished them. I kicked the chair out from under my feet.

"He'll choke to death!" Ramon shouted.

He shoved the chair back under my feet. I lifted my feet so it would not touch the chair.

"He's trying to kill himself!"

Ramon grabbed my legs and lifted me so that the pressure was off of my neck.

"Cut him down!" He screamed.

Luis hacked at the rope with his sword. After the rope was cut, they lowered me to the floor, my hands still tied behind me.

"Tougher than I even imagined." Ramon looked at Luis. "Or maybe he just hates us so much that he is willing to die to cheat us out of the treasure."

Luis kicked me. "I'll get the information from him. When I get through with him, he will beg me to kill him."

An explosion sounded that rocked the room.

"What is it?" Ramon exclaimed.

The two ran to the bedroom door, unbarred it, and went out. I heard one of their men below yell, "A black powder bomb hit the house. Street people are trying to break down the gate!"

Someone came through the window and flew across the room. As I twisted to get a look at the person, he slammed the bedroom door and threw the bar across. Pounding immediately began on the door. But Ramon had had the door constructed sturdily to ensure that he would not be surprised during his trysts with other men's wives.

"Eh, Bastardo, once more you have fun without me."

"Cut my bonds!"

He cut the ropes holding my arms and helped me to my feet. He guided me through the window, and we dropped down into the alley below. Two horses were waiting. Holding them were Jaime the lépero. Mateo tossed him a pouch heavy with coins as we mounted.

"Jaime followed the carriage when it left the house this morning. He also gathered the street people who are harassing your friends."

I grinned my thanks and waved as we rode off. I quickly took a mortal oath to ensure that Jaime was properly rewarded when I was able.

"To the causeway!" Mateo shouted. "Soldados were already at the house searching for you."

The horses could not carry us in a full gallop on the stone pavement. We checked their speed so that they did not slip on the stones. We would not run far on foot in the city.

As we approached the entrance to the causeway, I saw three men wearing the uniform of the viceroy's guards talking to the two causeway guards. A man I recognized as one of the viceroy's aides was with them.

Mateo and I spurred our horses on. The causeway guards lifted their muskets as we charged. Mateo knocked one down with his horse. A musket shot sounded from the other man, and I felt my horse falling out from under me. I kicked out of the stirrups and threw myself to the side to keep from being crushed as the horse went down.

Dios mio! My breath was knocked from me and pain exploded on my entire right side as I hit the road. I rolled and struggled to get my feet beneath me. Looking up, I saw a musket being swung at my head. I ducked, but it hit me a glancing blow that sent me back down.

My hands were quickly tied by soldados.

The viceroy's aide glared down at me. "Take this bandito to the dungeon. He has many questions to answer."

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR

Did I not tell you life is a circle? I began this secret tale after I was given quill and paper by the capitán of the guard. After using my mind to journey out of the cell as I recall my memories, and revealing my innermost secrets, I am still in the cell. Unlike what Mateo can do when he creates his plays, I cannot write a role that permits me to walk through the iron bars.

I have been stalling the capitán, even telling him some of my tales, to keep from being returned to the untender mercies of the Inquisitor priest who seeks God's favor by inflicting pain on others. I saw Fray Osirio often while I was writing this history of a life of lies. Like a vulture waiting for a wounded animal to die, he often waddled back and forth and flapped his wings outside my cell, waiting for the command that he could attach hot pincers back on my flesh.

Ay, all tales must have an end. And it would not be honorable of me to have you come this far, sharing these little inconveniences and tribulations that seem to dog my heels, without being with me when the cards dealt me by the Fates are finally turned face up. Eh, amigos, there is money on all the hands on the table, is there not? Sí, I can understand if some of you are betting against me. For good reasons, there are those among you who would like to see this thief and liar end his days hanging from a gallows with his heels kicking. But no matter what hand you are backing, you will want to be there to see if you win your bet as to my fate.

With that in mind, I have stuck a good quantity of the viceroy's fine thick paper inside my shirt to hide it. My intention is to put down the words in stolen moments at the hidden places where life would take me.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE

Do you remember my amiga, Carmelita? The puta in the next cell who supplies me with mother's milk for my secret writing? I received my last cup from her today. She is to have her baby at any moment, and they have taken her to a convent to drop it. The guards say that after she is through nursing the baby, she will return to prison and her punishment. What do you want to bet that she will be pregnant again when she returns. Eh, I know she's going to a convent... but stranger things have happened, no?

This was the second dungeon I had been in, and despite the painful reminders from the viceroy's torturers of my many trespasses, it is far superior to the black pool that the Holy Office maintained. A dark, ugly place, in the hands of the viceroy I was at least at ground level, so my cell was dry. And because there were bars rather than iron doors, my cell was not as dark as that black Hades maintained by the inquisitors.

Had they not insisted upon dragging me from my cell and applying tortures that only el diablo himself could have devised, I might have found my time waiting for the ultimate punishment bearable.

As it was, whenever I was not occupied writing the secret story of my days, or thinking—and worrying—about Eléna, I fantasized about how I would deal with Fray Osorio from Veracruz, who had tortured me with his devilish instruments. Of special interest to me was a device that I had heard the capitán of the dungeon guard boast about, one that he said existed in Madrid's Saladero, that infamous of all prisons, and that he has asked the viceroy to obtain. The capitán called this demonic contrivance the "Bull of Phalaris," and claims that it tickled the fiendish fancy of every torturer who used it.

The bull is said to be a great hollow, bronze statue. Torture victims were shoved into it through a trapdoor and roasted by a fire built underneath. Their shrieks were heard from the bull's mouth, making it seem that the bull was bellowing. The capitán claimed that Perilaus, the designer of this fiend's delight, was the first person to experience his own creation and that Phalaris, it's commissioner, was ultimately roasted in it.

Many a night as vermin ate at my wounds and sores, in the privacy of my mind I put Fray Osorio into the bronze bull and built a fire beneath. I would not build a large fire, but a small one, just enough to roast the fray slowly as I listened to the sweet music of his screams.

Are these not grand thoughts for a dungeon rat, who does not know what day it is? I had been unconscious so often that I had lost all track of time. By my estimate it was more than a month after my incarceration that I received my first visitor, other than torturers. No doubt the visitor had paid a bribe for the privilege of visiting the colony's most notorious criminal, coming caped and hooded to hide his identity.

When I first saw the dark figure approaching my cell, my immediate reaction was that it was Mateo. I had been writing when the person approached. I leaped from my stone bench to meet him at the bars, my quill still in hand. But it was not my compadre come to rescue me.

"Are you enjoying your stay with your brother rats and cucaraches?" Luis asked.

"Very much. Unlike my two-legged brother, they are not consumed with hate and greed."

"Don't call me your brother. My blood is pure."

"Perhaps someday I shall see the color of it, I suspect it is yellow."

"I don't think you will live long enough to spill my blood."

"Did you come here for a reason, brother?"

His face was a map of hate. His eyes were meaner than a cornered rat's, his lips pulled back with contempt.

"The marriage bans are being published. While you rot in this dungeon, or trade it for a grave, I will be married to Eléna."

"You can force her into marriage but never to love you. No one could love you, no one except that evil old woman who bloodied her hands with the lives of anyone who stood between her and her greed."

"Eléna will love me. You don't think she could really love a mestizo, do you, a lady of pure blood loving a thing with tainted blood, a creature like you who is hardly human?"

"Eh, my brother, it cuts deep, doesn't it? You know she loves me and that you can only possess her through her uncle's coercion. Is that what you want, brother? To possess a woman by fraud and force? Is rape your idea of love?"

He visibly trembled from the rage toward me that boiled in him.

"How does it feel to know you have to buy her from her uncle because she cannot stand you. What is the viceroy's share of your maize scheme? How many children will die of starvation because of your greed?"

"I came here to tell you how much I hate you. You have been a black shadow in my life since I was a boy. My grandmother told me of my father's folly, that he had put a stain on one of the proudest families of Spain by marrying an india girl."

A bolt of shock hit me. ¡Santa Maria! Don Eduardo had married my mother! I understood now, I was not a bastard. The marriage legitimized me. No wonder Luis and his grandmother had always feared me. Eduardo, dreamer and poet that he was, had not taken advantage of my mother but had married her, creating a mestizo who was legally heir to a noble house with ties to royalty.

"You fear me because I'm the eldest son," I said. "By law I'm heir to the title when Eduardo dies." I threw back my head and howled with laugher. "I possess everything you ever wanted, the grand titles, the houses, and haciendas, everything that you take pride in—even the woman you desire!"

"You possess nothing but the mierda you lie in and the vermin that eats your flesh."

He said nothing for a moment and then took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"As a peace offering to my bride-to-be, I agreed to come here and deliver a message to you. She is still grateful for the services you performed in Veracruz."

I stepped close to the bars, sticking my hand through, eager to take the note. He dropped the paper and grabbed my arm, pulling me against the bars. At the same time his other hand came through the bars and shoved a dagger in my gut.

For a long moment we stared at each other, barely a breath apart. He twisted the dagger into my gut. I screamed with rage and swung my other hand through the bars, the hand holding my writing quill. He let go of me and jerked back but the obsidian-sharp goose quill caught him in the face, slicing his cheek.

We stood staring at each other for a moment. Ink and blood ran down his cheek. I touched the scar on my own cheek.

"A scar is on my face because I bear the mark of a mine slave. Now you carry my mark."

He continued to stare at me, his eyes on my abdomen. I pulled open my shirt. The packet of paper I had hidden inside my shirt bore the cut left by his blade.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX

For a long time after Luis left, I gave thought to what he had inadvertently revealed. It unraveled the twisted mysteries of my past. I had been forced in life to live many lies. What I never realized was that the biggest lie of all had been foisted upon me at my birth.

Don Eduardo never mentioned to me that he had married my mother. That was how I thought of him, as Don Eduardo, not as my father.

Perhaps he assumed that I knew or that Fray Antonio had told me the truth. But Fray Antonio's great hope was that ignorance would protect me. He had been wrong of course. There was too much at stake to rely upon the truth remaining buried.

I tried to imagine how the tragic play of family honor and family heritage came about. The old matrona had sent the young Don Eduardo to the hacienda managed by Ramon to be taught the traits of a knight.

Eh, amigos, what marks a caballero as a man? His woman, his sword, and his horse, and not always in that order. Ramon must have been elated when his young protégé selected a pretty india to lie with. Perhaps he even reported it to the old woman, telling her that her son was acting like a true Spanish gentleman.

Ramon, of course, while not of noble blood himself, had spent his entire life in the service of nobility, and he knew them well. What he did not realize is that not all nobles are like Count Roberto's coins, all bearing the same face. Eduardo, like Eléna, had been molded differently than others of their class. God had put thoughts in their hearts that they were impelled to write down and share with the world. And those thoughts did not always agree with what others demanded.

Eduardo's mother—it is not in me to think of her as my grandmother—arrived for a visit at the hacienda, perhaps to see firsthand what progress Ramon had made in molding Eduardo. No doubt Fates played a hand here, timing the visit with my birth.

I tried to imagine what went on in Eduardo's mind as to my mother. My first instinct was that he had married my mother to defy his own mother, but my heart told me that was not true. His voice in the carriage carried true feeling for my mother. I believed that he had truly loved her. Perhaps, like so many poets and those who have led their lives guided by their words, he thought that love would conquer all. In that he has misjudged the old matrona. She was a product of her place in society. On the death of her husband, perhaps even much sooner, since her husband had some of the traits she found so noxious in her son, she took the reins of the noble house of the Marqués de la Cerda and struggled to keep it from fading.

How had Eduardo presented himself when he told his mother that he had not only married an india maiden but she had borne him a son and heir? The hate I saw in Luis' face outside the bars no doubt paled in comparison to the old woman's volcanic rage when she learned that the next marqués of the ancient line would be a mestizo.

What had Eduardo thought when Ramon was sent to murder his wife and child? Did he believe these killings were retribution for his sins? Did he even try to protect them? Did he even know that they would be murdered?

These were not questions I had answers to, but ones for which I conjured truths, at least to my own satisfaction.

I refused to believe that Don Eduardo knew my mother was going to be murdered. For the sake of his soul, I prayed that he had not known and failed to stop the act.

And I believed that after the foul deed was done, he blamed himself.

We all act differently, all take different roads in life.

When everything went to hell in my father's life, he simply gave up. He married the Spanish belle his mother decreed, produced a son whose blood was not tainted, and retreated into his poetry, the words of his heart.

Eh, amigos, do you see what I just wrote? I called him my father instead of Don Eduardo. In my own heart I had found enough understanding of him to speak of him as my father. Understanding, but not forgiveness.

Days passed slowly in the dungeon. Unlike the Inquisition's chamber of horrors, most of the prisoners in the viceroy's jail were minor criminals and debt peonasjers, with an occasional wife murderer or bandito thrown in. Many of them were grouped together in the larger cells. Other than myself, only one other prisoner was celled privately. I never knew his real name, but the guards called him "Montezuma" because he believed he was an Aztec warrior. His delusions had brought him to the viceroy's dungeon and soon to the gallows because he killed and ate a priest's heart when he took him to be an enemy warrior. The man's only language appeared to be animal growls and howls, which the guards often elicited by provoking and beating him. As a joke, the guards would throw a new prisoner into the man's cell, then pull him out at the last second as Montezuma was about to cannibalize him.

As I rotted in the dungeon, awaiting my death, I felt a little jealous of the madman. What a relief it would be to escape into a world created by one's own mind.

Several days after Luis's murder attempt, I received more visitors. At first I thought the two priests at my bars were Father Osirio and the other vulture fray who were waiting to rip off my flesh. They came up to my cell bars, cloaked in their priestly robes, and stood without speaking.

I ignored them, remaining on my stone bench, pondering what ignominious insults I could hurl at them.

"Cristo."

The whispered words were spoken by an angel. I leaped from the bench and grabbed the bars with both hands.

"Eléna."

She drew close to the bars and her hands took mine. "I'm sorry," she said. "I have brought so much trouble into your life."

"I made my own trouble. My only regret is that I tainted you with it."

"Cristo."

I stepped away from the bars, certain a dagger was about to be thrust.

"Did you come here to murder me when your son failed?" I asked my father.

"I came with Eléna to assist in this son's escape. I know what Luis tried. He taunted me that he had failed, but he would arrange for it to be done. Money can buy murder in places like this. He will find a guard who will do the deed for enough gold. We are here today because a palm was crossed with a piece of gold."

"It would be easier to pay for my murder than my escape. The murderer would probably go unpunished because I am condemned to death anyway. But an escape would result in all the guards being punished. And escape without cooperation of the guards would not be possible. These bars are iron and the walls are two feet thick."

"We have a plan," Don Eduardo said.

"You will need a miracle more than a plan," I said.

Eléna took my hands again. "I prayed for that, too."

"To me it is miracle enough that I see and touch you once again. But tell me why you think I can escape."

We huddled together while they whispered their plan to me.

"Our partner in this matter is your friend Mateo," Don Eduardo said. "He assures us that he has engineered many escapes, even from the Bey of Algiers. He sought Eléna's help and she came to me, knowing that I am desperate to redeem my sins."

I almost groaned aloud. Mateo's escapes were composed on paper and performed on stage.

"Mateo has gained access to the palace roof through a trapdoor in my bedroom," Eléna said, "created to allow escape in case of fire or attack. From the palace roof he can cross other roofs, eventually reaching the prison roof."

"What will he do on the roof?"

"The chimneys from the dungeon and every other part of the compound are there. He's made black powder bombs that he'll drop down chimneys, including the one at the guard's station. They'll not explode like cannonballs, but cause great smoke."

"Other than make me choke to death, what will these smoke bombs do?"

"Conceal your escape," Don Eduardo said. "My carriage is outside. When the smoke is created, we will rush outside, board the carriage, and leave."

I stared at them. "And these bars? Will the smoke widen them, so I can slip through?"

"I have a key," Eléna said. "My maid's lover is a guard. I obtained a key from him that fits the cells and doors."

I thought for a moment. "The guards will recognize me and grab me."

"We have a priest's robe," Eléna said. "You will be able to slip through in the initial confusion."

"But if they check my cell—"

"They will find me," she said.

"What!"

"Shhh," she whispered. "Your father wanted to be the one to take your place in the cell, but they would hang him after they found him. They won't harm me."

"You'll be tried for the escape."

"No. I'll tell them I came here to thank you for saving my life and bid you farewell, and that you had somehow gotten a key to the cell and forced me in when the smoke erupted."

"They'll never believe you."

"They have to believe me. My uncle would not permit any other interpretation of my actions. If his niece and ward was involved in the escape of a criminal under his authority, he would be recalled to Spain in disgrace. He will not only believe me, he will herald the story."

"Your friend Mateo will be outside the palace grounds with an extra horse," Don Eduardo said. "After dropping the black powder, he will use a rope to slip down to the street on the other side of the palace walls."

"We'll never make it over the causeway."

"He has a plan."

"He has many plans." Eh, amigos, don't we know that some of Mateo's plans are pure disasters?

Eléna squeezed my hands and smiled. "Cristo, do you have a better plan?"

I grinned. "My plan is your plan. What have I got to lose but a life that's already been condemned? So, my friends, tell me, when will this grand scheme hatch?"

Don Eduardo took a small hourglass from his waist coat and set it on a horizontal bar of the cell. "Mateo has a duplicate hourglass. When the top glass is empty, he will start dropping bombs."

I gaped at the glass. "It is almost empty!"

"Exactly. So prepare your mind," he said. "In a moment you will leave here in the fray's robe Eléna is wearing. Keep your head down. There's a handkerchief in the pocket of the robe. Keep the handkerchief close to your face at all times. Rub your face with it. Eléna put black cosmetic powder on it so it will appear your face is smoke blackened."

Eléna slipped the cell key into the door and slowly turned it. When I was unlatched, she handed it to me through the bars.

"Vaya con Dios," she whispered.

The grains of sand in the hourglass were quickly diminishing. We waited with intense anticipation for the last grain to fall. And nothing happened.

"Mateo has—" I started.

An explosion hit that shook the dungeon. And then another. Stone and mortar fell from the ceiling, and a black cloud blew through the corridors.

Eléna jerked open the cell door and handed me her robe. I gave her a kiss. Don Eduardo pulled me away from her.

"Hurry. We must use the surprise."

Dense smoke had already taken what little light the candles gave off in that gruesome stone passageway. I could barely see Don Eduardo as I followed behind him. All around me prisoners were coughing and screaming to be let out, fearful that a fire had somehow ignited the stone walls. To my right I heard the mad howl of Montezuma the Cannibal. He seemed to delight in the fact that the dungeon had turned midnight.

Muffled explosions came from other parts of the palace. Mateo was making sure the viceroy's guards were kept busy everywhere.

I crashed into someone, and my first instinct was that it was a guard.

"Help me! I can't see!" The man yelled, grabbing me with both his hands.

I recognized the voice. Fray Osorio. Sí, the man who had peeled my skin and ripped my flesh with hot pincers.

The Fates had finally dealt me a good hand.

"This way, Padre," I whispered.

I steered him to the cell of Montezuma and opened it with the passkey.

"Fray Antonio and Cristo the Bandit have arranged a special treat for you."

I shoved Osorio into the cell.

"Fresh meat!" I yelled to Montezuma.

I ran to find my father. Behind me was the sweet music of Montezuma's feral howls, and the fray's screams of horror and pain.

I stumbled out of the dungeon behind Don Eduardo. Others were already there, coughing and choking. Guards lay on the ground. The prisoner section had been inundated with smoke, but Mateo's bombs had blown wood, charcoal, and stone from the fireplace in the guard's room, wounding several of them.

I followed Don Eduardo's hurried steps to a waiting carriage. The driver was not in sight. He jerked open the carriage door and stopped.

Luis grinned at him from inside the carriage.

"I saw the carriage parked near the dungeon and figured you were paying this swine a visit. But I'm surprised you had the courage to help him escape. Guards!"

Don Eduardo grabbed him and pulled him from the carriage. As Luis came out, his dagger appeared in his hand. He drove it into Don Eduardo's stomach.

The older man let go of Luis and staggered back. Luis was still off balance from being pulled from the carriage. I hit him with my fist. He fell back against the carriage, and I slammed my elbow into his face. Luis fell to the ground.

My father was kneeling, clutching his stomach. Blood ran through his fingers.

"Run!" he gasped.

Guards had already started for us, and I could delay no longer. I climbed onto the driver's seat and grabbed the reins. "Andale! Andale!" I whipped the horses.

The carriage shot across the cobblestone courtyard with the two startled horses in the lead. They headed in a straight line for the main gate, which lay two hundred feet ahead. Behind me guards were shouting the alarm and muskets fired.

Ahead of me guards rushed to close the main gate. As it slammed shut, I turned the horses. More muskets sounded as I whipped the horses along the high wall separating the palace grounds from the street. A musket round found one of the horses and he went down, tipping the carriage and causing it to crash against the wall. The driver's box was as high as the wall, and I leaped from the driver's seat up atop the wall, then dropped into bushes on the streetside below.

"Compadre!"

From up the street, Mateo galloped two horses toward me.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN

We'll never make it over a causeway!" I shouted, as we charged through the streets.

Mateo shook his head, as if fleeing this island city was an inconsequential detail. Night was rapidly falling, but that would not get us past the causeway guards. The whole city—having heard the explosions and musket fire at the viceroy's palace—would be on the alert.

Mateo did not lead me to a causeway. Instead, I followed him to a familiar location: The lakeside dock where we had once fled the city aboard a boat filled with mint treasure.

A boat was waiting. As we neared, two mestizos in the boat pushed off and began paddling away from shore. I cursed their black hearts. We were stranded!

I followed Mateo's lead and climbed off my horse. He spooked the horses, sending them back toward the heart of the city.

The thunder of other horse hooves was coming toward us.

"The boat's leaving! We're trapped!"

"That was us on the boat," Mateo said calmly.

He steered me toward a donkey cart where Jaime the lépero was standing with a big grin. The cart was empty except for indio blankets.

"Under the blankets, quickly. The boy will lead us out of here."

"We will never get past the guards at the causeway. They're not that stupid."

"We're not going over the causeway." Mateo glared at Jaime.

The boy had his hand out.

"What do you want?"

"More dinero."

With the sound of the hooves of the soldado's horses in our ears, Mateo cursed the boy and threw him a coin. "Bandito!"

We climbed into the cart and covered ourselves as the boy guided the donkey away.

We went to the house of Don Silvestre's widowed daughter.

"She stays all the time now with her father, only coming here to bring me food and comfort," Mateo said. "I came back into the city and holed up until I made contact with Eléna and, through her, Don Eduardo."

For the next two days, Jaime came each afternoon for a few minutes with news of the day—and for an additional payment. I had the distinct feeling that he would have sold us to the highest bidder if in this case the highest bidder hadn't been us. As a street boy, I would have admired his thieving spirit. As a victim of his avarice, ¡ay de mí! We paid.

"I should cut your thieving little throat," Mateo growled at the boy.

The first news we had was that Cristo the Bandit and his accomplice had escaped from the city on an indio boat. Since there were hundreds of such boats plying the city each day, it was impossible to determine which boat we had left in and where we took to land.

With that news also came bad tidings. Don Eduardo had died of his wound; the death was attributed to me. It made me both sad and angry. Once again I had lost a father to a dagger. And again I was blamed for spilling the blood.

Reports about the hunt for Cristo became a daily fare. He was spotted fleeing in the direction of the four winds. He was already back up to his old tricks, robbing silver trains and ravishing women. Eh, if I had just committed half the deeds and loved half the women the rumors spoke about.

The other news was about Eléna. The tale being told in the marketplace was that the viceroy's niece had taken food to a sick guard and had been at the guard station when the bomb exploded. I had to give the Spanish bureaucracy some credit. They had taught Don Diego well. After all my years on the streets, lying about everything, including my very existence, I could not have come up with a more clever lie.

The other news about her was less heartening. Her betrothal to Luis was announced, and the marriage was being rushed so that they could journey to Spain on the next treasure fleet. Luis, whose own mother had returned to Spain to give him birth, thus ensuring that he was a Spain-born gachupin rather than a colony-born criollo, was to present himself at the Royal Court in Madrid for an appointment of some substance.

While I sulked in the house, not daring to leave it, Mateo journeyed out and came back with other news.

"The mood on the streets is mean. The price of maize is rising each day."

"They've started the squeeze," I said.

"Exactly. Hired rumormongers go into the marketplace and tell stories of droughts and floods that have destroyed the maize crops, but no one believes them. Travelers, who have come from the areas, shake their heads and repudiate the rumors out of hand. And in the meantime, Miguel de Soto refuses to release maize from the government's warehouses, claiming that they are almost empty and what little is in them is needed for emergencies."

"How are they keeping maize from individual farmers out of the city?"

"The Recontonería. They are buying it and hauling it away instead of into the city. They burn it."

"Burn it?"

"To keep it from increasing the supply and lowering the price for the maize they keep in the warehouse. The people hurt most are the poor, mestizos and indios who work as laborers. They cannot afford to buy enough maize to feed their families. Your lépero brothers and the poorest of the poor are also starving. They all blame the viceroy."

"Why the viceroy? Do you think he is really involved?"

Mateo shrugged. "Do I think he is directly involved, no. But he paid a great price to the king for his office. Men who pay the great amount required for the position usually go into debt to buy the office until they have collected back enough to pay off the loans. And who would he borrow from?"

"His old majordomo and business partner, Ramon de Alva."

"And Luis, the Soto's. The huge profits these bandits reap have to be connected to the viceroy's loans."

"So is Luis' marriage to Eléna," I said with bitterness. Though I had to admit that Luis, with my marqués title, was a plausible candidate.

"Is there anything being done?"

"Hunger makes even calm people angry and mean. When the grumbling gets too loud and people take to the streets, the cabal suddenly—miraculously—finds more maize in the warehouse and distributes a little at a fair price. As soon as that is eaten, they cut the supply and raise the price again. The warehouse is well-guarded, but Jaime has spoken to a warehouse worker who claims it is almost bursting from the maize packed into it."

"I can understand the greed of my beggar brothers," I told Mateo. "When a bone was thrown into the gutter, we all ran for it because it may have been the only food we would see that day. But how can the greed of Ramon and the others be explained?"

"They are pigs, who will eat at the trough even when their bellies swell and threaten to burst. They are never full. There is always a need for more."

"Amigo, I have been cooped up in this casa for an eternity. If I do not get out of it soon, I will die from boredom."

"Eh, I understand. Your señorita is marrying a pig in a few days. You want to hang him by his feet and cut his throat so you can watch him bleed, no?"

"Something like that. I also want to hang Ramon beside him."

"So let's do it."

"Tell me your idea," I said.

"What idea?"

"The one you always have. The tragic-comedia of revenge that you have concocted and that is no doubt beyond our ability to perform."

"Have you not cheated death because of my dramatic skill?"

"Cheated, yes. But I am still in the city, surrounded by hundreds of soldados, and will be back in captivity as soon as Jaime the lépero finds someone who will pay for our heads more than you are paying."

"Bastardo—"

"Eh, I'm not a bastard anymore."

"You will always be a bastard to me. But excuse me, Señor Marqués." Mateo stood and bowed. "I forgot I am speaking to the head of one of the great houses of Spain."

"You are forgiven. This time. Now tell me your plan."

"Listen closely, compadre, and you will discover why on the peninsula princes and dukes speak of my comedias with the same reverence they reserve for the Holy Bible. Because of your rashness in saving la bella Eléna from pirates, you have been exposed as the liar and thief that you are. Now that we are hunted criminals, we no longer have the freedom to swindle the cabal into financial ruin."

"Is your plan to talk me to death?"

"Sorry, Señor Marqués, I must keep aware of the fact that you wearers of spurs are very impatient."

As I listened to Mateo's jest about the noble title I "inherited" when my father died, I remembered Ana's comment that Mateo was an outlaw nobleman. I had never mentioned it to him. There are some things too private to probe. Had Mateo wanted me to know, he would have told me. He was a man who boasted of many things. His disgraced nobility was not something he bragged about.

Mateo tapped his head. "Think, Bastardo, other than cutting off their heads with a fine sword stroke, what would most hurt these pigs the worst?"

"Emptying their money chests."

"And who is protecting them?"

"The viceroy."

"Eh, Bastardo, I taught you well. So to make these devils vulnerable, we must rid them of their gold and the viceroy's protection." He took a deep swig of what I had learned long ago was his brain food. "Now tell me, where is all their dinero?"

"Uh, buying up maize to control the market."

"Sí, their pesos have all turned into maize. They control maize."

I began to see his plan. "We will take control of the maize. Buy everything that comes into the city. Pay the Recontonería more for it. Distribute it to the people. We break the stranglehold on their monopoly of maize, drive down the price, their maize, their pesos, rot in the warehouse."

Mateo shook his head in mock disappointment. "Bastardo, Bastardo, I thought I taught you better than this. That is a wonderful scheme, but there is one big flaw to it."

"What?"

"It would take too long. It would take weeks for us to gather enough maize from what is brought to the Recondonería by small farmers. By that time they will have doubled and tripled their money and your amor will be on her way to Spain with her new husband. No, we must strike boldly and quickly. We will do that by burning the maize warehouse and making the supply of maize scarce."

I gaped at him in astonishment. "You have lost your mind. That would play right into their hands. The less maize, the more it will raise the price. They will bring in maize from other areas and make a fortune."

Mateo shook his head. "I told you, they are squeezing the supply in the city. They hold it back to drive up the price. When it appears, the poor are going to riot, as they have done in the past, they release enough to take off the pressure. But if we destroy their supply, they will not only have none to sell, but none to take the pressure off. It would take a week or more to get maize here from the nearest warehouses, the ones in Texcoco. By that time people will be very hungry."

"I don't know..."

"Listen, it is a masterful play. We beat them at their own game. To drive up the price, they use the maize in their warehouse like a bucket of water to put out a fire. They make those on fire pay dearly for the water and only splash a little extra when it looks like the fire will spread. We will take away their bucket. When that happens, they will have nothing to keep the fire from spreading. Starving people are not passive. The evils of men or gods will not make the people of this city rebel—but empty bellies will."

"They have rioted before," I said.

"And will do it again. We destroy the supply of maize. Our hired rumormongers go into the streets, saying the viceroy himself has burned the maize. Eh, soldados of the palace guard will be seen firing the building."

I broke out laughing. "Mateo, you are the greatest autor of plays in the civilized world."

"You underestimate my talents," he said in a tone of false modesty.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT

"We will use the mascarada as cover for our plan," Mateo told me.

Eh, amigos, did I not tell you that there was always an excuse for a celebration in the colony? We took to the streets to celebrate the dead, the arrival of the treasure fleet, good news of victories in the wars in Europe, the birth dates of saints, investitures of bishops and viceroys... and any other momentous events we could use as an excuse.

Of all the celebrations, the colorful atmosphere of the mascarada carnival was my favorite. The excuse for this mascarada, Mateo said, was the queen's delivery of a healthy baby prince. Don Silvestre's widowed daughter told him about the celebration during one of her visits.

"She says the reason for the mascarada is to take the people's minds off their empty stomachs. The viceroy knows the temper of the street. Every time he levies a special tax for the king's wars, he throws a carnival. So he called the city notables together last week and told them they were going to put on a mascarada to celebrate the royal birth. It will permit us to go out onto the streets dressed in costume. She is purchasing costumes for us."

When her servants brought our costumes, Mateo looked at them in shock and then flew into a rage.

"I refuse to wear such rubbish!"

"Of course," I agreed, barely able to keep from laughing.

He kicked the bundle of costumes. "The Fates are laughing at me."

Don Silvestre's daughter had actually chosen the most popular mascarada costumes for our disguises: Don Quixote and his companion-servant, the rotund Sancho. Eh, how was she to know about Mateo's anger toward the doleful knight's creator.

The genius of the selection was not apparent to Mateo but came instantly to me: There would be a great number of Quixotes and Sanchos at the mascarada. We would blend in.

With no other alternative, he grudgingly agreed. Naturally he selected the main role, that of the knight, and left me with the fat, little peasant Sancho. "But do not mention the name of that blackguard who stole my soul," Mateo warned me.

We left the house dressed in our costumes.

"We will go to the main square. It will be packed, so when the parade moves, no one will notice when we veer off toward the warehouse."

The square was mobbed with people, some in costumes, most just there to watch the show others put on with their costumes and antics. At the head of the parade were trumpeters. Behind them came a long procession of carts that had been turned into scenes from the pages of history, literature, and the Bible, along with hundreds of costumed figures.

The scenery carts were elaborately designed, the gaudiest drawing the most attention from the on-lookers. Those on the street tended to be the small merchants, laborers, and the poor, while the people of quality watched from decorated balconies or rooftops.

The first exhibition parading past was indio. Men and women in the costumes of the various indio nations marched by, the warriors in battle garb, the women in traditionally festive attire. One group, wearing only enough clothes to avoid arrest, had smeared brightly hued clay paints on their bodies and marched down the street swinging clubs. From the crowd's comments, I took them to be votaries of the vicious Dog People.

Following the indios was Cortes astride his horse and surrounded by indio kings, some of whom he had killed or vanquished: Netzahualcóyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco who died before the conquest, Montezuma, who died at the hands of his own angry people, the ill-fated Chimalpopoca, who died from torture at the hands of the conquistadors, and the war god Huitzilopochtli, who took a heavy toll in lives before his temple finally fell to the Spanish.

After the scenes and characters from history, came vivid recreations of great scenes from literature. Following tradition, the first was a cart that showed mio Cid coming to the rescue of the fighting Bishop Jerónimo, who had charged the Moors singlehandedly. The scenery cart showed the bishop striking down an Infidel with a cross, rather than the lance mentioned in the poem, while Cid came charging up on horseback.

Then came Amadis de Gaul, the seminal chivalry character. The scene showed Amadis in the magic archway on Firm Island that no knight except the most valorous on earth could enter. Amadis was fighting invisible warriors, their ghostly nature shown by sheer, spider weblike cloth covering their uniforms.

"Do you hear the poor people around you," Mateo said. "They know the meaning of each scene and can even repeat words from the books—yet they have never read a book. They have heard of these characters and scenes from others. The mascarada brings them alive, making them real for people who cannot even read their own name."

Eh, it was bringing them alive for me, too, and I had read most of them.

Bernaldo de Carpio came along, slaying the Frankish champion Roland at the Battle of Roncesvalles, and a bittersweet scene came to my own mind: When I first saw Eléna at the plaza in Veracruz, I had pretended I was Bernaldo.

Along came Explandian, the hero of the Fifth Book of Amadis. This was one of the books Don Quixote read. The chivalric nonsense led the knight-errant's mind astray and was among the romances his friend, the curator, burned. The scenery cart showed an enchantress conveying the sleeping Esplandian to a mysterious vessel called the Ship of the Great Serpent. The ship was a dragon.

"Palmerin de Oliva," someone said as the next cart came by. The heroic Palmerin de Oliva had gone on an adventure to find a magic fountain guarded by a giant serpent. The waters of the fountain would cure the king of Macedonia from a deadly illness. Along the way he met beautiful fairy princesses who cast a spell to protect him from the enchantments of monsters and magicians.

The Palmerin cart was the most cleverly done and awes and shouts of approval followed it. It showed Palmerin standing by the fountain and surrounded by the scantily clad fairies. Wrapped around the entire cart was a giant, coiled serpent, the monster that protected the fountain. The monster's head had risen behind Palmerin as if it were about to attack the young knight.

And, of course, there was our friend from La Mancha bringing up the rear, following in the footsteps of the literary characters that had twisted his mind. The adventures of the knight-errant was the newest of the characters on parade but had already gained legendary stature. And everyone there, few of whom had ever read a book, knew the story.

Don Quixote was Alonso Quixano, a middle-aged hidalgo, a man who spent his life idle and not at all wealthy, living in the dry, almost infertile region of La Mancha. He became consumed with a passion for reading books of chivalry. These books of knights and princesses in distress and dragons to slay were so farfetched and irrational the poor gentlemen lost control of his mind reading them. Soon he was burnishing his grandfather's ancient armor and preparing his trusty knight's "steed," Rosinante, a poor, skinny old stable horse, to carry him into battle. Needing a princess to rescue and love, a necessity for any knight-errant, even ones who confuse windmills for giant monsters, he dubs a simple country lass, Aldonza Lorenza, a duchess. For a page and servant, he induced a peasant, the gullible Sancho, to accompany him.

On his first outing, the don came to a country inn, which, in his fanciful world, he imagined to be a great castle with a moat and lofty towers. There he is waited on by two prostitutes, whom he fantasizes are great ladies from noble families. That night the two "ladies" help him undress.

The float shows the good don in night clothes but wearing his knight's helmet. Two women are next to him. The women, the inn's prostitutes, had helped him get off his rusty armor but were unable to get off his helmet, which he must sleep in.

The women are costumed so that the side of their clothing facing Don Quixote is that of great ladies and their backside, the side he does not see, are the cheap, gaudy clothes of prostitutes.

I barely got a glance at the scenery cart.

"Let's go," Mateo commanded.

Ay, faithful, stupid, pudgy Sancho trudged away, following Don Quixote on another mission to joust with windmills.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE

We met with Jaime and a prostitute a block from the warehouse.

"You have given the puta her instructions?" Mateo asked.

"Sí, señor. But she requires more money to do the task." Jaime held out that ever-demanding hand.

"Do you remember what I told you about your ears?" Mateo asked. "You and she are to do what I tell you, or you will both lose your ears and noses. Here," Mateo said, giving him a single coin, "this is the last. Finito!"

The hand dropped. But I did not like the look in the boy's eyes. I said so when Mateo and I left them to get into position.

"You should have given the boy more money," I said.

"No. The little thief's rich already. He's gotten enough."

"You don't understand the mind of a lépero. There is always famine after feast, so there is never enough."

Four guards were at the front of the warehouse. Only one was on duty. The other three were around a fire, two of them asleep and one dozing on and off, waiting for his shift to begin. One guard was at the back. Only one was needed because a yell from him would bring the others.

Jaime and the puta went to work, walking near the back of the warehouse, attracting the guard's attention. Jaime went over to speak to the guard, offering him the woman's service for a nominal amount. It was to be expected that the guard would refuse, not wanting to risk severe punishment by leaving his post. And that is exactly what happened: The boy gave us a subtle hand signal that the guard would not leave his post.

As the boy kept the guard talking, we approached in our costumes.

The guard grinned at us as we came near. Jaime jerked on his sleeve. "Eh, I offer you a good deal."

"Get out of here, lépero—"

That was all the guard got out before Mateo put him out with a blow from the hilt of his sword.

"Quick now," Mateo told Jaime.

The boy and the prostitute left to attract the attention of the men in front of the warehouse, while Mateo and I broke the lock on the back door. With the lock off, I dumped on the ground the contents of a sack I had been carrying. It contained a dozen torches dipped in pitch. Mateo lit straw and used it to light a torch. From it we lit the others.

The earth floor was blanketed with chaff and husks, and corn dust was thick in the air.

"Ah, Chico loco," Mateo said, grinning, "this place is a tinder box ready to blow!"

Even as we lit the torches, these remnants and leavings began to ignite, and by the time we threw the blazing brands into the corns sacks, the floor was aflame. I counted us lucky that all that air-borne corn dust hadn't exploded like gunpowder, blowing us all to Mictlan. By the time we left the warehouse, everything was burning. The floor chaff and corn-sack conflagrations were converging into lakes of fire.

We fled that inferno for our lives, tongues of flame licking the sky.

Returning to the house where we were holed up, darkness was falling. Behind us the sky was filled with explosions of shooting flame and high, twisting coils of billowing smoke as the huge warehouse turned into a single hell-fired holocaust.

By now Jaime would be telling people that the viceroy's guards had been seen starting the fire. So would other street people paid to spread the story.

"What if the city burns down?" I asked Mateo.

"Mexico is not a city of wood hovels like Veracruz. It will not burn down. And if it did"—He shrugged—"it would be God's will."

He was in a jolly mood by the time we were back at the house. I had to argue to keep him from going to a cantina to find trouble and a card game. Still something about the night's work had left me uneasy.

I awoke in the middle of the night, my paranoia as much afire as the warehouse had been. I went into Mateo's room and shook him awake.

"Get up. We're leaving."

"Are you loco? It's still dark."

"Exactly. The viceroy's soldados will be here soon."

"What? How do you know?"

"How do I know the sun will rise in the East? It's in my mind and my blood. I used to be a lépero. This well may be running dry for Jaimie, but not if he sells us to the viceroy. We're worth a fortune to the little beggar."

He looked at me for a long moment and then flew out of bed. "Andando!"

We left dressed as poor street people.

We were walking away from the house, when a group of soldados on foot and on horse converged on the house.

Under ordinary circumstances, we would have been challenged on the street because we were out past the ten o'clock curfew the viceroy mandated. On this night people were still on the streets because of the celebration following the parade and an extra attraction: The warehouse still glowed and smoldered from the fire.

We had to get off the street and had no place to go. I led Mateo to a place where the door was always open: A House of the Poor.

This one was larger than the dirt-floored hovel in Veracruz. Each of us secured a bed with a straw mattress rather than just straw flung on the ground.

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY

The next morning we stayed in the House of the Poor until the streets were alive with people. The day had special significance to me. It was the day of Eléna's wedding to Luis. Rather than the formal wedding involving all of the great families of the colony, the wedding was to be a simple affair in the viceroy's chambers. The archbishop would preside.

"Your face looks like Montezuma's after he discovered Cortes was not an Aztec god."

"It's Eléna's wedding day. She may be getting married at this very moment."

"It is also the day of reckoning for us. The viceroy's men will be on the streets looking for us. We will not last long if our plan to start a riot does not work."

Jaime the lépero knew some of our sins, but nothing of our plans. As for Ramon, Luis, and the viceroy, they might conclude that I'd fired the warehouse, but they would not know about my larger plans.

We went onto the streets dressed as léperos, our swords hidden under ragged cloaks. We headed for the marketplace where maize would be sold. What we found there was turmoil. A large crowd had gathered before the stalls of the maize sellers. The dealers were literally auctioning off the maize to the highest bidders. And the bidders were the servants from the wealthiest families in town.

"Nothing will be left for us," I heard people mutter.

"It's not fair!" Mateo shouted. "My babies will starve! Food and justice!"

"My family's hungry!" I roared. "What can I feed them? The soles of my shoes?"

"The viceroy's men fired the warehouse to raise prices!" That from someone, I imagined, who had been paid by us.

A group of ten guards from the viceroy's palace stood by at the edge of the crowd, uneasy. They were outnumbered by fifty to one. An officer on horseback watched me and Mateo.

"We will all starve!" Mateo shouted. "It's the viceroy's fault. He eats fatted calves while our children cry and die in our arms!"

"I need food for my babies!" an old hag yelled. The woman looked many years from having birthed any babies, but I took up her cry and soon other women were shouting for food.

Arguments broke out between the food sellers, and people demanding they be sold maize at an affordable price. Pushing and shoving ensued and tempers flared. The crowd was already enraged, and with each new indignity, the fury grew, people gathering strength from others around them. People who would normally scurry away like whipped dogs from a spur wearer's whip were shouting for food and justice.

The officer ordered his men to follow him as he cut through the crowd in a straight line for Mateo and me. We pried stones from the pavement and let them fly. The crowd parted as the officer quickened his horse. My stone went wide, but Mateo's hit the man's helmet. As he came up to us, Mateo pulled the officer from the horse.

A musket went off and the old hag crying about her imaginary babies fell to the pavement.

"Murder!" Mateo shouted. "Murder!"

The cry was picked up by a hundred voices. Violence spread like the fire in the warehouse. As the other soldados came forward, pushing their way through the crowd to try and reach their officer, people grabbed them. The last I saw of the viceroy's men was a mob of street people beating them.

The anger and frustrations, not just of a food shortage, but a lifetime of being treated as little more than curs, erupted like a volcano. People attacked the stalls of the maize merchants.

Mateo climbed onto the officer's horse and raised his sword. "To the viceroy's palace," he shouted, "for food and justice!"

He helped me up behind him on the horse. The mob followed us out of the marketplace, growing bigger with every step it took. Soon it was a thousand strong, then two thousand as it poured into the main plaza, looting merchant shops.

A wild frenzy seized the crowd as it neared the palace.

"Gold!" Mateo shouted and pointed at the palace. "Gold and food!"

The cry was picked up by the mob and shouted by thousands of voices.

The palace was not a fortress. The city had no walls, and the palace walls were designed more for privacy than protection. The city was in the center of New Spain, a week's journey at least for any invading force. No one had ever challenged the city, so there had been no need for a fortress.

The viceroy's gates offered little resistance to the mob. A cart filled with paving stones being used by laborers to repair ruts was grabbed and slammed through the gate; nor did the vastly outnumbered palace guards, who melted away at the sight of two thousand angry people marching at them, offer resistance. Not even the futile shots that would have been fired at foreign invaders were expended at the crowd.

"That bench!" Mateo shouted at those who followed us to the front door of the palace, "we'll use it to knock down the door!"

A dozen hands lifted the heavy wooden bench and sent it crashing against the tall double doors. Two more times it was rammed before the doors flew open. Mateo and I rode the horse into the palace, followed by an army of looters.

While the mob surged down the great hall, we dismounted and went up the stairway. Coming out of the viceroy's chambers at the top, I saw a group of people: The viceroy, archbishop, and aides were hurrying down the upstairs hallway. Behind them came Ramon, Luis, and Eléna.

"Eléna!" I shouted.

The three of them turned to us. Mateo and I saluted the two men with our swords.

"Go!" Mateo yelled. "Run like women from their husbands' penes. Return with a rolling pin to fight us."

Ramon stared down at us calmly. "You two have caused me a great deal of trouble, but killing you will be worth something."

He came down the hallway with Luis beside him as we went up the stairs. I stole one frantic glance at Eléna in her wedding dress before we met the two swordsmen.

Mateo was a step ahead of me and immediately engaged Ramon as I squared off against Luis. The sound of our striking blades played above the sounds of the mob below. We heard musket shots. Apparently the viceroy's guards had decided to take a stand.

Luis's features were contorted with hate yet also a strange sort of glee.

"I'm going to show my new bride how a gentleman handles lépero scum," he said.

His swordsmanship was dazzling. He was far better than I would ever be. I could not believe my own rage had sucked me into this. I would be cut to pieces in front of Eléna. Only raw hate kept me going, giving me speed and strength and cunning I never dreamed I had. Still it was not enough. He slashed my forearm, cut my right shoulder, and reopened the wound I had gotten from the Veracruz pirate.

"I am going to carve you into pieces, not kill you quickly," Luis said. "I want her to see every drop of your tainted blood spill."

His blade sliced my knee. I was bleeding in four places, and he was backing me up with sword work I could never hope to match. He touched his newly shaved cheek with his sword—the cheek I had impaled with my writing quill.

"Sí, you cut my face so I would look like you, and I hate you even more for that," he said. He backed me against a wall, and his blade cut my other knee. My leg collapsed, and I went down on one knee.

"Now your eyes and then your throat," he said.

He suddenly expelled air from his mouth as if he had been struck in the back and lost his breath. He stared at me with wide eyes and then slowly turned around.

Eléna was standing behind him.

As he turned, I saw the dagger in his back. It had not gone in far and, he shook it off.

"Bitch!" he screamed.

I leaped forward and hit him with my shoulder. He flew backward and hit the railing. I kept my momentum going and hit him again. He burst through the railing and fell to the floor below. I staggered to the edge and looked down. He was on his back, still alive, moaning and moving his arms and legs, but nearly unconscious. The pox marks on his face were not visible from the top of the stairs. With his shaven face and cheek scar, it was as if I was looking down at myself.

Luis had made the same mistake that the pirate had: He had underestimated a woman.

"Eléna." I held out my hand to her. She grabbed me around the waist and I leaned on her for a few seconds before pulling away. "I must help Mateo."

The picaro was faring no better with Ramon than I had with Luis. Mateo was a better swordsman than I, an extraordinary bladesman for certain, but Ramon was said to be the best sword fighter in all New Spain.

As I limped toward the action, Mateo suddenly moved into the circle of death, lunging at Ramon. Ramon's blade swung around to Mateo's neck, and Mateo's left arm went up and caught the blade against his forearm. At the same time Mateo stuck his dagger in the man's abdomen.

The two stood face-to-face, almost nose to nose, Ramon staring at Mateo in wide-eyed disbelief, unable to accept that he'd been bested, let alone killed. Mateo's thrust had set the man onto his tiptoes.

Mateo twisted the dagger.

"This is for Don Julio."

He twisted the dagger again.

"For Fray Antonio."

He stepped back and faced Ramon, who rocked back and forth on his heels, the dagger still stuck in him. He grinned at Ramon and held up his forearm, pulling back his sleeve to expose the metal guard on the arm. "I regret that I am no gentleman."

Ramon collapsed.

Musket sounds became epidemic, and the mob was pouring out of the palace in retreat from the palace guards.

"Take him out of here," Mateo told Eléna. "Get him to the stables and into a carriage. Get him away from here."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I have an idea." He whispered to Eléna, not letting me hear.

Before we went out the door I turned back and saw Mateo bending over Luis. He stood up and shouted to guards coming down the hallway.

"Here! Take this man! It's Cristo the Bandito!"

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE

Eléna commandeered a coach and frightened coachman, instructing him to take us out of the city. We went to a hacienda owned by Luis. It was the closest place where we could find shelter and help with my wounds.

"Luis rarely visited the hacienda. He had only recently acquired this one and seldom visited any of them."

"The people there, they'll know I'm not Luis."

"The servants and vaqueros would not know you from Luis. If we say you are Luis, they will not question it. The majordomo was recently fired. Luis frequently fired majordomos."

She wrapped a piece of petticoat around my face after staining it with blood from my other wounds. "There. I could tell them you were the viceroy, and they would not know the difference."

She refused to tell me what Mateo had whispered to her.

She doctored my wounds again, just as she had after I was wounded in Veracruz. I lay in bed all day, healing.

To me it was a temporary sojourn from reality. I expected at any time that the viceroy's men would be coming to get me. Mateo had erred in not killing Luis. The idea that he would turn the man over to the guards and they would accept the fact that Luis was Cristo the Bastardo was nonsense. There was a physical resemblance but the moment Luis recovered his senses he would tell them who he was.

I cursed Mateo for his stupidity.

Several days later Eléna came to the room. She looked a little distraught.

"He is dead."

"Who?"

"Cristo the Bastardo. My uncle had him almost immediately put to death as a lesson to the rioters."

"You mean Luis? But... how? How could they not believe him when he told them who he really was?"

"I don't know."

She cried, and I held her in my arms.

"I know he was the devil," she said, "but I blame that evil grandmother of his as much as I do him. I never loved him. In truth, he was not really even likable. He had no true friends, which was one reason I tried to be his friend. But he has been with me almost all of my life. And no matter how he talked, I know that his love for me was real."

There was more news. Mateo had been rewarded by the viceroy. He was a hero of the city, having almost single-handedly driven the mob from the palace and capturing Cristo the Bastardo after the bandit killed Ramon de Alva.

I gaped when I heard the story. Dios mio! Why would it surprise me? No doubt Mateo had written the act as part of his original plan for the riot.

That night, when I was tucked in bed, Eléna had a servant bring a pot of boiling hot oil. After the servant left, Eléna barred the door. She sat down beside me on the bed.

"You asked me what Mateo whispered. He gave me instructions, ones that will hurt you."

I looked over at the hot oil. "You're not intending to cauterize my wounds with that—"

"No, you've told me that is not the proper way. I'm going to drip the oil on your face."

¡Santa Maria!

"Have you gone as loco as Mateo? You intend to conceal my identity by wiping away my face."

She leaned down and kissed me with soft, cool lips. Then she caressed my cheeks with her fingers. "Remember when I told you that you reminded me of someone?"

"Yes, first I assumed it was that lépero swine, Cristo the Bastardo, whom you helped to escape. Now I know my resemblance to Don Eduardo inspired you."

"No, Don Cristo-Carlos-Luis, whatever your name is, it was none of those. It took a long time for me to realize that you reminded me of Luis. Neither of you were as handsome as Don Eduardo."

"Thank you."

"But you both shared some of his features."

I looked back at the hot oil. She was going to scar my face with pox marks.

"No, I won't let you do it."

"You must. It is the only way. It will not hurt for long."

"It will be with me the rest of my life. Each time I see those pox marks, I will think of Luis and hate my own face."

"It is the only way."

"It'll fool no one."

"Cri—uh, Luis, think about this. He had no close friends except Ramon, and that mal hombre is in hell. He has no more family except relatives in Spain, none of whom have seen him for years. My uncle was the only one who even knew him reasonably well. Luis was a man who did not seek the company of others, not even women. His grandmother, and myself to a lesser extent, were the only ones with whom he was close."

"You said it yourself, your uncle would recognize him. He's seen both of us together."

"And what is my uncle to report to the king? That he mistook a marqués for a beggar-bandit and imprudently hanged him? My uncle will not blink an eye when my husband, Luis, returns to the city after his wounds heal. I will let him know subtly before you walk into his presence, so he will not faint dead when he sees you."

I shook my head. "This is insanity. I cannot just take the place of another man. The last time I tried this it got me into more trouble than it was worth."

"That is what is wonderful about this plan of Mateo's. Who is the Marqués de la Cerda?"

"The marqués? Why I... I..."

"Say it."

"I am the rightful Marqués de la Cerda—by birth."

"Can't you see? My love, you will be impersonating yourself! "

I thought for a moment.

"I am also your lawful wedded husband. It is time I claimed my conjugal rights." I pulled her to me and began removing her clothes.

"Wait," she said. She pushed me away. "As your wife, will I be allowed to read what I like and write what I wish?"

"As long as I get what I want, you may read and write."

"To make sure I get what I want," she said, "I shall keep a dagger hidden in my petticoats."

¡Ay de mí! I had married a jungle cat.

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO

Five months later, recovered from my wounds—and the hot oil to my face—we left the City of Mexico to board the treasure fleet at Veracruz.

Don Diego had welcomed me into the family without meeting my eye. Mateo had contrived a heroic feat for me in the riots, one only slightly less awesome than his own singlehanded defense of the palace. With my ancient bloodline, which was in a small way tied to the throne of Spain, and my recent act of heroism—along with a substantial contribution to the king's war purse—I was ordered to the Royal Court in Madrid to assume a position on the Council of the Indies for three years. With the travel time between Europe and the colony, and visits to my peninsular relatives, it would be a good five years before we returned. By that time, all but the legend of Cristo the Bastardo will have faded.

Mateo sailed on the same ship. Extricating our secret hoard from the cave, he boasted that he would build a great arena and fill it with water in Madrid. Then he would perform before the king the great sea battle for Tenochtitlan. Would I worry what mischief this would result in? Sí.

You say this is all a fairy tale? That the poor street child cannot become a nobleman with a beautiful wife? Eh, amigos, was not Amadis of Gaul cast out as a child? And did he not win a princess and a kingdom?

Do you expect any less from Cristo the Bastardo?

Have you forgotten that a great autor of plays was manipulating all the events to ensure that there was a happy ending? I told you it was a wondrous tale, as colorful and exciting as any of the chivalric romances that drove poor Don Quixote loco.

And in truth, I have not told it all. I could not, of course. You see, like Jaime the lépero, I am such a product of my youth on the streets that I could not help lying. Amigos, forgive me, but I confess that sometimes in my secret narrative, I have even lied to you.

I leave now—

Eh, wait, you say. I have left out part of the story. You want to know why the guards did not believe Luis when he told them that he was not Cristo the Bastardo.

Well, you see, he never told them he was really Luis. He tried, but the words would never come out. Mateo told me the reason before Eléna and I boarded the galleon for Seville. When he bent over Luis on the floor of the viceroy's palace, he cut out Luis's tongue.

It is now time to put down my pen. As a high nobleman of Spain and New Spain, I am now a man of the sword and not the quill.

¡Vaya con Dios, amigos!

AFTERWORD

The major historic events related in the novel occurred during the seventeenth century in Mexico, then known as New Spain. Incidents such as the manipulation of the price of maize resulting in the food riot in which the viceroy's palace was attacked, the pirate raid on Veracruz, the Jaguar Knight murder cult, and the adventures of the nun-bandit Catalina de Erauso were of this period.

Eléna, of course, was inspired by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Beautiful, brilliant, a bastarda ("daughter of the Church" was how her birth certificate put it), the great poetess threatened to disguise herself as a man and sneak into a university because women were not permitted an education.

The author has been liberal in presenting the chronology of the events.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Jennings was known for his intensive research, which often included rigorous and sometimes hazardous travels—exploring every corner of Mexico for his Aztec novels, retracing the wanderings of Marco Polo for The Journeyer, joining nine different circuses for Spangle, and roaming the Balkans writing Raptor.

Copyright © 2001 by Eugene Winick, Executor, Estate of Gary Jennings

ISBN: 0-812-59098-8