Aztec Blood

'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 capitan 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, 'Senoras, senoritas, 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.

Elena 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 Elena. 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 Elena 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 Elena 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.

'Perdon!' 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, senor, 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...'