since diplomacy and patience had not given results. Perhaps she suspected that the incident in the street had been his work, but she had no proof, and the persons who could furnish it, the Gypsies, were long gone and would not dare return to Barcelona. In the meantime, he had investigated and found that Tomas de Romeu was insolvent. Times had changed; that family was no longer in any condition to make demands. His own status was exceptional, and the one thing he needed to hold the reins of his destiny in his hands was Juliana. True, he did not have Eulalia de Callis’s approval to court the girl, but he decided that he was past the age to be ordered about by his domineering aunt. However, when he tried to send a letter to Tomas de Romeu to request an appointment, it was returned; Romeu had already left the city with his daughters. No one knew where he had gone, but Moncada had ways to find out. By coincidence, Eulalia had that very day summoned him to set a day for her to introduce him to the daughter of the duke and duchess de Medinacelli. “I am sorry, aunt. However suitable that union might be, I cannot be a party to it. As you know, I love Juliana de Romeu,” Rafael announced with all the firmness he could muster. “Get that girl out of your head, Rafael,” Eulalia warned. “She never was a good match, but now marrying her would be social suicide. Do you think she would be received at court when it is known that her father is a French sympathizer?”
“I am prepared to run that risk. She is the only woman in my entire lifetime who has ever interested me.”
“Your life has barely begun. You want her because she has snubbed you, not for any other reason. If you had won her, you would be bored with her by now. You need a wife of our station, Rafael. That girl is barely good enough to be a mistress.”
“Do not speak that way of Juliana!” Rafael exclaimed. “And why not? I say whatever I please, especially when I am right,” the matriarch replied in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “With the titles of the Medinacelli and my fortune, you can go far. Ever since the death of my poor son, you have been my only family; that is why I look after you like a mother. But my patience has its limits, Rafael.”
“As far as I am aware, your deceased husband, Pedro Fages, may God hold him in his sacred bosom, had no titles, or money, when you met him, aunt,” her nephew accused. “The difference is that Pedro was courageous; he had an impeccable military record, and he was willing to eat lizards in the New World if that is what it took to make a fortune. Juliana, on the other hand, is a spoiled little minx, and her father is a nobody. If you choose to ruin your life with her, you cannot count on me for help, is that clear?”
“Very clear, aunt. Good day.” Moncada clicked his heels, bowed, and left the salon. He looked splendid in his officer’s uniform, with the tasseled sword at his side and his boots gleaming. Dona Eulalia did not change expression. She knew human nature, and she was confident that towering ambition always wins out over deranged passion. Her nephew’s case would be no exception. Only a few days later, Juliana, Isabel, and Nuria came rushing back to Barcelona in the family coach, with no escort but Jordi and two footmen. The sound of hooves and the noise in the courtyard alerted Diego, who was just getting ready to go out. The three women were covered with dust, and looked drained. They came with the news that Tomas de Romeu had been arrested. A detachment of soldiers had burst into the house, leveling everything in the place, and had taken him off without giving him time to pick up a coat. All the women knew was that he was accused of treason, and that he was being taken to the dreaded Ciudadela. When Tomas de Romeu was arrested, Isabel had assumed the management of the family because Juliana, who was four years her senior, simply crumpled. With a maturity she had never shown until then, Isabel gave orders to pack up the necessities and close the country house. In less than three hours she and Nuria and her sister had hurried to Barcelona, pushing the horses to the limit. On the way they had time for the realization to sink in that they did not have a single ally. Their father, who, they believed, had never harmed anyone, now had nothing but adversaries. No one was going to compromise himself by lending a hand to a target of government prosecution. The one person whom they might go to was an enemy, not a friend, but Isabel did not hesitate one minute. Juliana would have to prostrate herself at the feet of Rafael Moncada, if it were necessary; no humiliation could be too great when it was a matter of saving their father, she said. Melodramatic or not, she was right. Juliana herself admitted that, and afterward Diego would have to accept the decision; not even a dozen Zorros could rescue someone from La Ciudadela. No one could escape from that fort. It was one thing to worm his way into an unimportant barracks commanded by an inexperienced second lieutenant; it was something else to confront the king’s troops in Barcelona. Nevertheless, the idea that Juliana was going to Moncada to beg horrified Diego. He insisted on going in her place. “Don’t be naive, Diego,” Isabel replied firmly. “The one person who can get anything from that man is Juliana. You have nothing to offer him.” Isabel herself wrote a letter announcing that her sister would call, and sent a servant to take it to the house of the persevering suitor, then instructed her sister to bathe and dress in her best clothes. Juliana was insistent that only Nuria accompany her, because Isabel lost her head too easily, and Diego was not one of the family. Besides, he and Moncada hated each other. A few hours later, still with deep circles under her eyes from the fatigue of the trip, Juliana knocked at the door of the man she detested, defying norms of discretion established centuries before. Only a woman with the most questionable reputation would dare visit an unmarried man, even if accompanied by a strict chaperone. Though the winds of autumn were already blowing, beneath her black mantle Juliana wore a gauzy yellow summer dress and short jacket embroidered with bugle beads; her curls were covered with a bonnet the color of her dress, tied with a sash of green silk and trimmed with white ostrich plumes. From a distance she resembled an exotic bird, and when she came near, she was more beautiful than ever. Nuria waited in the vestibule while a servant led Juliana to the salon where the smitten suitor was waiting. Rafael watched Juliana float in like a naiad in the quiet afternoon air, and he knew that he had been awaiting this moment for four years. The desire to make the girl pay for past humiliations nearly won out, but he sensed that he should not go too far: that fragile dove must be at the limits of her endurance. The last thing he had imagined was that the fragile dove would be as skillful in haggling as a Turk in the market. No one ever knew exactly the course of their negotiations; afterward Juliana explained only the basic points of the agreement they reached. Moncada would arrange for Tomas de Romeu to be freed and she, in exchange, would marry him. Not a gesture, not a word, betrayed Juliana’s emotions. A half hour after she went in, she came out of the salon with perfect calm, walking beside Moncada, who was lightly holding her arm. She made a peremptory gesture to Nuria and went straight to the coach, where Jordi was dozing with exhaustion on the coach box. She left without a single glance at the man to whom she had promised her hand. For more than three weeks, the de Romeu girls awaited the results of Moncada’s efforts. The only times they had left the house were to go to church to pray to Santa Eulalia, the saint of the city, to help them. “We need Bernardo badly!” Isabel commented more than once during that time; she was convinced that he would have been able to find out what condition her father was in, even get a message to him. What could not be done from higher up, Bernardo frequently achieved through his connections. “Yes, it would be good to have him here, but I am happy he’s gone.
Finally he is with Lightin-the-Night, where he has always wanted to be,“ Diego assured her. ”Have you had news of him? A letter?“
“No, not yet. It takes a long time.”
“Then how do you know?” Diego shrugged. He could not explain how what the whites in California called the “Indian mail” operated. It worked infallibly between Bernardo and him; since childhood they had been able to communicate without words, and there was no reason why they could not do it now. An ocean might separate them, but they stayed in contact as they always had. Nuria bought a length of rough dark brown wool and stitched some pilgrim’s robes. To reinforce Santa Eulalia’s influence in the heavenly court, she also appealed to another saint, Santiago de Compostela. She promised him that if he freed hex patron, she and the girls would make the pilgrimage to his sanctuary on foot. She had no idea how far that would be, but she assumed that if people went from France, it could not be far. The situation of the family was at its lowest ebb. The majordomo had left without explanation as soon as his patron was arrested. The few servants left in the house went about with long faces, and they replied to any order with insolence because they had no hope of collecting back wages. The only reason they didn’t leave was that they had nowhere to go. The money counters and pettifoggers who looked after Don Tomas’s affairs refused to see his daughters when they came to ask for money for everyday expenses. Diego had no way to help; he had given almost everything he had to the Gypsies. He was expecting money from his father, but it had not arrived. In the meantime, he resorted to more earthly contacts than those Nuria was pursuing to find out what shape the prisoner was in. La Justicia was no help now. Its members had dispersed, the first time in two centuries that the secret society had suspended its activities; even at the worst moments in their history they had been able to function. Some of its members had fled the country; others were hiding, and the least fortunate among them had fallen into the grasp of the Inquisition, which no longer was burning its prisoners at the stake; now they simply disappeared without a trace. At the end of October, Rafael Moncada came to speak with Juliana. He looked
