Aztec Blood

No matter how I thought of myself as the peacock, there was always something to give away my lack of breeding. Even my hands betrayed me. The hands of the proud men on the Alameda were as soft and delicate as a woman's. They probably had never even lifted on a pair of breeches. My hands were hard and callused from working cattle. I kept them closed, hoping no one would notice that I had used my hands for honest labor.

Women saw my ordinary clothes and lack of a horse, and their eyes slid past me as if I was invisible. But Mateo grabbed their attention no matter how worn the heels of his boots or how frayed the cuffs of his doublet. He had an arrogance about him, not the haughtiness of a dandy, but an aura of danger and excitement that told a woman he was a scoundrel who would steal her heart and jewels but leave her smiling.

I noticed that some of the women and men wore masks, full-face ones and the type that only covered the upper half of the face.

'Fashion,' Mateo said, 'it is all the rage. New Spain is always years behind Europe. Masks were the fashion ten years ago when I fought in Italy. Many women even wear them smeared with oil to bed, believing it eases the wrinkles on their faces.'

As we walked Mateo told me that he had already been working on the investigation for Don Julio.

'I contacted the man that the don says acts for the Recontoneria. He is a strange little man, not at all the cutthroat or with the appearance of blackguard, but more the type who counts sheep and writes down the pounds of wool for a merchant. The don says he is merely a go-between for several notables in the city to whom the pesos taken from illegal pulquerias, whorehouses, and control of the marketplace ultimately passes.'

Mateo was describing his negotiations with the man for a pulqueria when I saw a familiar figure. Ramon de Alva rode high in the saddle, a big man on a big horse. I cringed first at the sight of him and then straightened my spine. I was not a young picaro on the streets of Veracruz, but a Spanish gentleman with a sword strapped to my side.

Nothing got past Mateo, and he followed my gaze.

'De Alva, the right hand man of Don Diego de Velez, one of the richest men in New Spain. Alva's said to be rich as Croesus himself, also the best swordsman in the colony—except for myself, of course. Why do you stare at this man as if you wished to put your dagger in his gullet?'

At that moment Alva stopped beside a carriage. The woman in the carriage was wearing a half mask, but I recognized the carriage. Isabella, laughing gaily at something Alva said, carrying on her flirtation and the don's disgrace in plain sight for all the notables of the city to see.

Someone snickered off to my left. A group of young hidalgos were watching the exchange between Alva and Isabella. The one who snickered wore a gold doublet and breeches with red and green slashes that made him look like a bright jungle bird.

'Look at Alva with the converso's wife,' the canary said. 'We should all let her do our penes in the viper way. What else is a converso's wife good for?'

I flew at the yellow bird and punched him in the face. He staggered backward.

'You are a woman,' I told him, uttering the worse insult one could give an hombre, 'and I'm going to use you as one.'

He snarled and went for his sword. I grabbed for mine—and my hand fumbled with the basket on the hilt! My sword was only half drawn when the yellow bird lunged with his for my throat.

A sword flashed between us and, the bird's sword was countered. Mateo followed with lightning thrusts that cut the hidalgo's arm. The man's sword fell to the ground, and his friends drew their swords. Mateo was quickly on them, and soon all three were in full retreat.

From across the Alameda, the horn of the viceroy's soldados blew.

'Run!' Mateo shouted.

I ran behind him into a residential area. When there were no sounds of pursuit, we walked in the direction of the don's house.

Mateo was angrier than I had ever seen him and I kept silent, shamed at my failure. He had warned me not to play the fop and wear a fancy sword, but I had done so and would now be bleeding to death on the Alameda if it were not for his quick blade.

When we were near the don's house and his face was no longer the color of the Smoking Mountain when it spit out fire. I mumbled my amends.

'You warned me about the basket guard. I was too concerned with playing the dandy than being the swordsman that you taught me to be.'

'Tried to teach you,' he corrected. 'I told you that as a swordsman, you are a dead man. I am not angry about your foolish attempt at swordplay. I am enraged about the position you put the don in.'

'The don? I was defending his honor!'

'You were defending his honor? You? A half-blood who is just a few steps from the sewers? You defend the honor of a Spanish gentleman?'

'They didn't know I'm a mestizo. They think I'm Spanish.'

He grabbed me by the throat. 'I don't give a damn if you are the Marques de la Valle himself. The code of hombria demands that a man fight his own battle for a woman.' He shoved me away.

'I don't understand what I did wrong.'

'You put the don in danger.'

I was still in a fog. 'How did I affect the don by defending his honor?'

'By putting his honor at issue, you foul and disgusting lepero. The don is not a fool—he knows his wife is spreading her legs for Alva, and other men before him. They have no marriage; he stays away from the city to keep from being disgraced.'

'Why doesn't he do something about it?'

'What is he to do? Ramon de Alva is a master swordsman. He was weaned with a dagger in his teeth. The don is a man of letters; his weapon is the quill. If he confronts Alva, he is a dead man. And it is not just Alva. If it were not the majordomo, it would be a dozen other men. Or some fool who smirks and calls him a converso as if it were a form of leprosy.

'The don is an honorable man. He is a brave man. But he is intelligent, and he chooses his fights because he is not a fool. When you attack a man in his name, you create not just a blood feud but bring the intrigue between Isabella and Alva into the open, forcing the don to take action.'

To say I was shocked and devastated by my stupidity would not describe my agony.

Mateo sighed. 'It is not as bad as I have portrayed. You did not say why you attacked the man, and you are new and unknown in the city. I recognized one of his friends as the brother of a lady I have become acquainted with. Tomorrow I will tell her that you attacked the man because you thought he was the culprit who was singing love songs to your betrothed. Without identifying you, I will pass the message that you were mistaken and regret the incident. That will not keep you from getting killed if the man I wounded finds you, but it will protect the don.'

We reached the house and paused in the coolness of the courtyard, while Mateo lit one of those tobacco leaves that the indios rolled into a turd.

'More was in your face when you looked at Alva than his affaire d'amour with Isabella. I saw hate, the kind one gives to a man who has violated his mother.'

I flinched at the reference to mothers. 'I knew about the intrigue between Isabella and Alva,' I told him in a low tone after making sure no servants were in the area. When I described the romping in the courtyard at the Velez hacienda, Mateo muttered a curse that if it came true, Isabella would burn eternally in the fires of hell.

'Then that is it? The affair with Isabella?'

'Yes.'

'You are a lying dog of a lepero. Tell me the truth before I cut off your testicules and feed them to the fish in the fountain.'

Defeated, I sat down on the edge of the fountain and told Mateo the whole story—almost. I left out Maria and the whorehouse. It had been bottled up in me for so long, it came out in a gush of words and hand wringing— the strange vendetta of the old woman in black, being told my father was a gachupin, the questioning by Ramon de Alva, the murder of Fray Antonio, the search for me.

After I was finished, Mateo called for a servant and instructed him to bring us wine. Then he lit another foul-