The Sorceress

By the time Diego got down to the stables, Oreana had already changed her clothes and saddled the colt.  Now in a dark blue skirt and jacket, she sat poised in the saddle, her hair drawn back from her face with a single black ribbon, her eyes shaded by the brim of a black felt hat.  The colt pranced nervously beneath her, jerking his head as Bernardo held him by the bridle.  "It is all right," said Oreana, "I have him."  But Bernardo still seemed reluctant to let him go until Diego took the reins of his own mount and swung up into the saddle alongside her.  Then Bernardo got on his own blaze-faced bay, still eyeing the palomino doubtfully.

"You appear to have your hands full," said Diego.  "How did you ever convince my father to let you have this one?  He’s still practically wild."

"Oh, it was relatively simple," she said, "once I caught him.  Then all I had to do was stay on."

"My father let you catch him?"

She shrugged innocently.  "Well, he said I should pick one out."

"And I take it you didn’t just point at him.  Did you rope him?"

"Why would I do that?"

"How else would you catch him?"  Diego frowned as they headed out toward the road.

"I just slipped my shawl around his neck."

"You walked up to him."

Oreana laughed.  "Actually, he walked up to me."  Then, shaking her head, she added, "You know, the vaqueros are so direct.  They just take what they want.  But horses are like children.  They get very curious if they think you are ignoring them.  And if you are kind, and respect them and love them, they give themselves to you.  This is something I think you understand, no?"

He grinned and shook his head.  Then the grin faded into a faint smile.  "I understand how they could give themselves to you," he said.

A thoughtful look settled across her face.  "I see," she said at last.  The horse snorted and shook his head, gathering his long legs beneath him as if to bolt.  But something in the way she shifted her weight told Diego she wouldn’t lose her balance.  "You know," she said, "one should not thwart the natural instincts of such creatures.  It can damage their spirits."

The next thing he knew, she had given the horse its head.  It jumped sideways, then took off up the road in a cloud of dust.  Bernardo cocked a worried brow, but Diego only laughed as he stirred his horse from a trot into a full gallop.  He didn’t know if he could catch her or not, but now that he thought about it, it might be fun finding out.

He wondered if she intended to stay on the road.  He, of course, did not.  He knew at least a few shortcuts between the road from his house and the mission highway, and as he took the nearest one, he motioned Bernardo to keep on following her as best he could.  Bernardo was himself a talented horseman, and his skills had developed the more he worked with Tornado.  She wouldn’t leave him so far behind that he would lose her if anything happened.  But the gelding, carrying a heavier load, both in terms of his rider and Diego’s ornate silver trimmed saddle, would need every advantage, especially since he was seldom asked to extend himself this way, given his master’s supposed distaste for sweat.

The dense chaparral and the rocky terrain were a bit more challenging for him than they would have been for Tornado.  But once things smoothed out a little, he found his stride, and the ground gave way easily beneath his powerful hindquarters. When they finally reached the crest of a small ridge that overlooked the mission highway, the scrub oak and manzanita thinned enough that Diego finally caught sight again of the girl and the colt.

From where he was, he knew that he could easily have brought the gelding down the hill alongside her to match her stride for stride.  But watching her, he realized she wasn’t really riding as if this were a race.  She was just letting the animal run, leaning perfectly balanced over his withers, barely moving except to accommodate his stride, as though she were somehow floating above him.

Diego had to admit that seldom had he seen anyone sit a horse so well.  Her hair had come loose from the ribbon, and she had let the hat fall down her back, along with the blonde tresses that, like the horse’s white satiny mane and tail, caught and held the curve of the wind.  By the time he finally urged the gelding onto the highway he didn’t really care if he caught her or not just as long as he kept her in sight.  This, he suddenly realized, was what his father must have seen when he first loaned her the horse, the day Urbino had been killed.

And how could Urbino himself have failed to see how much she loved riding?  How could a man who loved her have insisted that she give up something that was so clearly a part of her?  Or for that matter, how could she have been so in love with him that she would have agreed to give it up, unless they both really had been walking around in a trance?

She noticed Diego as he brought the gelding onto the highway again half a stride or so behind her, but she made no attempt to draw any farther ahead.  In fact, as the two horses continued to churn up the dust of the mission highway, she leaned back just slightly in the saddle, enough to slow the colt and bring the two animals side by side.  And Diego swore that if he had been Urbino, and had ever seen her look at him this way, although he knew it was only the exhilaration of the moment, he would still have wanted to keep that look on her face, whatever it took.

By the time the mission church finally came in sight, they slowed their horses to a synchronous canter, then a trot.  Then they reined in beneath the shade of an old oak, both horses lathered but neither looking likely any longer to bolt.

"You ride so beautifully," she said.  "It is a joy to watch you."

He smiled.  "I was about to say the same thing about you.  But you sit a horse as if you are more accustomed to one of those English saddles."

"Actually, I prefer no saddle at all," she laughed, her face still flushed with excitement.  "But, of course, riding bareback doesn’t do one’s clothing any good."

"Don’t tell me you learned to ride from your aunts as well," he said dismounting.

"No, no.  They don’t know everything."  She swung down lightly into his arms, then slipped away, taking the hat from around her neck and shaking her hair, combing it back off her face with the help of a gentle breeze.  "My father," she said.  "He was a soldier."

"At the presidio of San Francisco?"

"Oh, no.  He left the King’s service when I was very young, before we left Spain.  But my mother’s family, they had connections at court.  We were promised land in the New World."

"I see."  Diego smiled, imagining the stir she would create if she walked into church with her hair all undone this way, falling loosely down her back.  As if she had read his mind, she bent back and gathered it up, twisting it like a shiny golden rope into a loose knot atop her head.  Then she secured it with a dark lacy veil and a small comb she took from her pocket.  The transformation was immediate and stunning, almost as effective as a disguise, he thought.

Once Bernardo had caught up with them, they all went inside.  The contrapuntal harmonies of the great pipe organ and the trained voices of the Indian choir echoed off the inner walls, bathing them in sweet hazy chords.  They sat in the back of the church, largely unnoticed by the congregation.  Finally, right before the end of the service, she slipped out—apparently avoiding communion again.  Yet she herself had said she wanted more than just Urbino’s ring.  If she didn’t want help dealing with his death—one of the things the church was really good at—then what else did she want here?  He snuck out after her, leaving Bernardo inside to wait for Padre Felipe.

She stood in the shade of the huge old oak, one hand resting absently on its gnarled bark.  "Are you all right?" he asked, coming up to stand behind her.  She nodded.

"I will be, but his presence is very strong here.  I feel it."  Diego could tell she was close to tears.  Not knowing what to say that might comfort her, he said the only thing he could think of.

"You know, I never got a chance to tell you.  He was still alive when I found him.  With his last breath, he asked me to protect you."

She let her hand fall from the tree and turned partway around.  "And you, of course—you told him you would.  Pobrecito.  Gracias for helping him die, and gracias for telling me.  I know you did everything you could to save him."

"Oreana . . . if I said anything earlier to offend you, I—I mean, I know you really did love him.  And what you said to him the other day in the chapel, that was true.  You and I, we— "

"Diego."  She turned toward him finally and took his hand, caressing it tenderly.  "Of course I loved him.  He would have known if I were just pretending.  The spell had to go beyond mere illusion."

Diego studied her face carefully, recalling what he had told Bernardo earlier about figures of speech.  "Are you saying you think you really did have some sort of supernatural influence on him?"

She released his hand and sighed heavily, turning away to survey the fields again.  "I do not believe in the supernatural," she said.  "But I do think there is more to nature than people realize."

"Like the ability to alleviate pain."

"Sí."  She nodded.

"So you did do something like that to him?"

A faint sad smile appeared on her lips as she gazed off toward the jagged line of distant mountains.  "Not to him. . . .  The most potent spells are those we cast on ourselves, eh?  And they are the hardest to break.  I doubt I could have done it without your help."

"My help?"

"Oh, do not misunderstand," she added, turning back to him as she saw the apprehension on his face.  "I still love Urbino.  Perhaps I always will.  He wanted me so.  But I won’t spend the rest of my life, now, grieving, imagining I could be happy if only he were still alive."

"Oreana, I had no desire to— "

"Of course not"—she shook her head—"and you didn’t, really, but don’t you see?  Before we met, I had forgotten what it was like to be valued, not just for how you look, or for your family’s wealth, or for the help you can give, but because someone understands you.  Someone has walked the same paths you have walked and knows who you really are, all your darkest secrets, and just . . . likes you anyway.  Entiendes?"

"I think so."  Looking down at her, he knew she could tell how well he did understand.  It was easy to believe you didn’t need such a friendship until suddenly you had it.  Then, like water in the desert, it brought everything to life.

She nodded—"Creo que sí"—then gently took his hand again.  "This is why I must now tell you everything," she said.  "You have the right to know that, if you continue to help me, you will be breaking the law.  The crime I have been charged with . . . well, I fear I really am guilty."

"You’re joking."  He stifled a laugh, then squinted down at her.  Clearly, her beliefs were rather unconventional, but how could someone with her education think in such superstitious terms?  "Do you mean to say that you really believe you’re a . . . ?"

"A witch?"  She looked down and bit her lip, considering the question carefully.  "I believe I follow a religion much older than yours," she said finally.  "It is much older than Greece or Rome or the Parthenon or la Ciudad de David.  At one time we may have called ourselves witches.  I’m not even certain where the word comes from.  But these days it has come to be synonymous with evil.  No sane woman would call herself such a thing, even if she were one of us, at least, not in front of someone she didn’t trust with her life."  She glanced up at him shyly, almost as if she expected him to shrink from her.

When he didn’t, she went on.  "Our beliefs have been badly misunderstood.  Like the Jews, we have been accused of worshiping Satan.  They say we murder helpless infants and devour their flesh and perform shameful acts with demons and beasts.  None of this is true."

"Urbino said you would be blamed for his death."

"Oh, Diego . . . ." She winced.  "You will be blamed as well, don’t you see?  And even Zorro cannot save us from men’s irrational fears.  You cannot fight the Church."  Closing her eyes, she looked away.  "I was ready to give my life to save my brother," she said tightly.  "In a way, I already had.  But la Señora rejected my gift.  Through you, she gave me back my life.  She didn’t intend for me to die—not like that anyhow.  She intended me to use my skills.  My hands are no longer bound.

"But now that you know my darkest secret, well, you can see it is worse than just being an outlaw.  I value your friendship more than I can say.  But I would rather lose it than see you hurt.  Nor can we let your reputation be ruined by linking you to witchcraft.  If people come to fear you, you will no longer be able to function as Zorro, and that would be a far greater loss than I could bear."  Her shoulders shook just a little as she struggled not to cry.

Once again, he was almost afraid to put his arms around her.  Then, before he knew it, he had done it, and while he tried to be as decorous as possible, he couldn’t help but feel the desire welling up beneath her fingers where she touched him, and his own fingers ached to follow the line of her jaw, to lift her mouth to his.

Finally, he heard himself say, "I cannot believe you could do anything so evil as to deserve the sort of punishment Señor Marigál deals out.  Nor do I think anyone else would believe it.  You are as kind as anyone I have ever known."

Then, as she hugged him a little tighter, he added, "But you know, it may not be so easy to retrieve Urbino’s ring.  In fact, it may be—unpleasant, even if they haven’t buried him yet.  And if they have, well, today is Sunday."

"They have," she whispered.  "But it will be all right."

"How do you know this?"

She shrugged and shook her head.  "I just do."

Her supple body felt so different from his own, yet it fit so exquisitely into his embrace that he could scarcely concentrate on anything but the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the feel of her breath against his throat, the scent of her hair.  "How can you be so certain about some things yet not be able to foresee others?" he said at last.

"I do not know," she said.  "Perhaps I am afraid to see.  Or it may be that, by myself, I cannot raise enough power.  Sometimes, you know, the gods themselves are not certain."

"My son."  Diego felt a sudden forceful jolt startle both of them as another hand came down firmly against his shoulder.  "I knew that God and el Zorro would bring you safely here," said Padre Felipe warmly, patting her arm as well.  "I have said many prayers for you, my children."

"Gracias, Padre," said Oreana softly.  "I have felt your prayers, and they have strengthened me when I most needed strength."  Her fingers found Diego’s hand and gave it an inconspicuous squeeze as, reluctantly, almost painfully, he let her go.

"Come, come."  The priest motioned them to follow.  "I am so glad that both of you are here.  Please walk with me.  I regret that all this had to be done in such secrecy and haste.  But we will go on praying for the souls of both of these men, and I know God will grant them peace.  One day soon, with His help and that of el Zorro, this ordeal will be ended."

Diego caught Bernardo’s eye, motioning him to stay with the horses, then offered the girl his arm.  As they headed up a shady corridor and into the cemetery, the priest suddenly turned to Oreana and said, "Oh, my child, I nearly forgot.  I thought you would like to keep this."  Then, to Diego’s surprise, he handed her what looked like a gold signet ring.

She didn’t seem at all surprised.  She simply glanced up at Diego as she thanked the priest and slipped it into her pocket.  Diego could only shake his head, glad that at least he didn’t have to explain this to Bernardo.  Presently they came to a patch of dark, newly spaded earth.

"I had him put here, beside the old woman," said the priest, nodding at the grave where they had buried Teresa.  Neither grave was marked, but both held fresh flowers.  Oreana smiled, but her voice got thick again.

"You knew we would come today, sí?"

"I had a feeling," said Padre Felipe.

"You are a good man, Padre," she said.  "Bless you."

"And may God bless you, my child."  He caught her hand and enfolded it warmly in his.  Then, leaving her alone with her thoughts, he turned back to Diego.  "Mijo," he said, "I assume you have spoken with el Zorro about his plans to catch this extortionist Marigál."

"Yes, I have," said Diego absently, his mind and body both still reeling from everything they had just absorbed within the last few minutes.  If he had been amused by an Indian who feared Jews taking care of a converso who feared savage Indians, this new irony left him having to make a conscious effort to keep the expression from sliding off his face.  Would the priest have believed her confession?  Would her knowledge of healing and her idle talk of magic and her heretical notions about mass add up to enough evidence to conclude that here was a real practitioner of witchcraft?

"And how do you feel about allowing yourself to be placed in such danger?"

"Well, Padre . . ."  Diego also found himself wishing that this topic had not come up, at least not this way, right in front of her.  "I must say," he shrugged, "I do wish el Zorro had found some other way to accomplish this task.  But I myself do not see how, now that these men are dead."

"Nor do I."  The priest studied his fingers.  "But I must admit it worries me, even though I have a great deal of faith in Zorro’s abilities."

Diego tried to listen as Padre Felipe went on praising Zorro, but he was also trying to keep an inconspicuous eye on what Oreana was doing.  By now, he noticed, she had knelt down by the bare grave and was busily tracing odd designs in the dirt with her finger.  She looked so intent on what she was doing that he himself felt momentarily drawn in.  When he finally remembered to look back at the priest, all he could think to say was, "I guess we will all just have to trust to God."

"Of course, my son, though He sometimes works in mysterious ways."

"This is the truth, Padre."  As he glanced past the priest again, he saw that now Oreana had taken out a small knife—probably the same one he had seen her use the night he found her behind the stables—and had cut off a lock of her own hair that she had pulled out of the knot.  Carefully, she twisted it as if she were spinning a thread.  Then she wove it into a circle and laid it beside the flowers.  Then, before he knew what she had done, she ran the sharp blade over the tip of her finger.  He tried not to wince as big drops of her blood soaked into the bare earth.  Finally, gathering a few handfuls of loose dirt, she scattered them over everything, covering up the figures she had drawn.  Just as the priest turned back to her, she pocketed the knife, wrapped her finger in a handkerchief, doubling her fist over it, and stood up.

"Will the two of you not stay and have something to eat with us?" he said, extending a hand to her.  Then, noticing the handkerchief, he added, "Oh, my child, you are hurt.  Please, let me see."

"It is just a scratch," she said.

"Are you certain?  You know, lovely though they are, those roses have very sharp thorns."

"Sí, Padre," she said.  "It is rare that such beautiful things survive without some defenses."

"We really should be going, Padre," said Diego, slipping his arm lightly around her shoulders again.  "I did not tell my father that we were leaving to come here, and I would not wish to worry him needlessly.  God knows he may soon have reason enough."

"All of us here will be praying for you, mijo."  Padre Felipe took his arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze.  "Via con Dios.  Both of you," he added, smiling significantly at Oreana.  Then he stepped aside to watch them walk back toward the hitching post where Bernardo waited with the horses.  As she moved to take the colt’s reins from him, Bernardo also noticed her hand and gave Diego a worried look.

"Will you be able to handle that animal," Diego asked as he finally took her hand and coaxed her into relaxing her grip on the blood stained handkerchief.  The small cut looked painful, but he saw that it had already quit bleeding.

"I believe so," she said with a faint smile as she swung up into the saddle.  "Though we may not be quite ready for dressage, he is, at the moment, the least of my worries."  Diego nodded, then turned and mounted his own horse.

"You get along quite well with Padre Felipe," he said as they headed out onto the highway.

"Why should I not?" she shrugged.  "I am not intolerant of people whose beliefs differ from my own.  There are many paths to the truth.  But please—do not change the subject."

"There is no point in discussing the other subject," Diego said politely.  Oreana stuffed the bloody handkerchief back in her jacket pocket.  Then she reached up to pull the comb and the veil from her hair, leaving it to tumble down free again, shaking her head, steadying the prancing colt beneath her as she did so.

"You cannot just permit Señor Marigál to take you prisoner," she said.

"There is no other way to find out where he is holding the hostages."

"There must be.  Diego, you do not realize.  I can— "

"No."  His eyes grew darker as he turned them on her.  "You will stay away from him.  He has no reason at all to keep you alive."

"There might be a way he could be persuaded," she said quietly, fixing him with an equally dark glance, until from the darkest corner of his mind crept a thought so ugly it sent a small shiver up his spine.  "I suspect that Señor Marigál may be a man who enjoys his work," she added.  Diego could only look away from her, finally, and close his eyes to erase the sudden flood of images that had haunted him since he had first read accounts of medieval torture.

"You will stay away from him," he said.

"You cannot deny that your chances of saving me would be better than your chances of getting away from him on your own," she said, her tone almost as coldly solicitous as Marigál’s.  "Your skills do seem better suited to rescue than escape.  I, on the other hand— "

"I will not be on my own.  Bernardo is an experienced tracker, and he has saved my life on more than one occasion."

Bernardo, who by this time had surmised almost everything, clearly did not like either plan.  He glanced from Diego to the girl and back again, looking a little helpless.

"There is another consideration," she said.  "It seems to me that most of your family’s wealth is tied up in cattle—at least until fall.  You don’t have that much in the way of hard currency."

He shrugged.  "That is true of practically everyone in California.  What is your point?"

"It will not take long to deplete that wealth," she said.  "Suppose something happens to you; say you do not find it so easy to escape Marigál’s grasp.  Your father will soon be forced to start killing cattle out of season, selling horses and sheep for anything he can get.  It will go quickly."

"I still do not understand," said Diego, squinting at her.

"The land."  She looked up at him, her eyes widening for emphasis.  "Don’t you see, he wants your land.  That is what this is all about."

His eyes also got a little wider, but he could only shrug and shake his head.  "Well, I am not sure Señor Marigál would be able to get his hands on that," he said, "even if he does kill me.  The king awarded it to my grandfather and his descendants just a few years after Los Angeles was settled.  My father might not be able to transfer the title to anyone outside our family, even if he wanted to, not without the consent of the governor, at least.  And my father would never agree.  He won’t run off the way Señor del Valle did.  He will stay and fight, and I think he would realize that even if he could give up his land, it would be the quickest way to get me killed.  Marigál would have to kill me then, to make sure I didn’t contest the transaction."

"And how would it be if he could simply discredit you and your entire family as a bunch of devil worshipers?"

Suddenly, Diego felt the puzzled expression melting off his face.  He started to say that he didn’t see how Marigál could prove his whole family was guilty just by getting a false confession out of him.  But then he did.

"You will make up stories about relatives you never knew you had," she said.

For a while, they rode in silence.  Finally, he sighed deeply and said, "I have underestimated this man, then.  But still I do not see why this means we should let him take you instead of me."

"Two reasons," she went on in the same quietly lethal tone.  "First, I have nothing to lose.  Señor Marigál cannot just walk away from my family.  Having taken Arturo, he must go on to publicly accuse us, to destroy us or be destroyed.  You are not a threat to him yet, but if you let him abduct you, you will oblige him to try to ruin your family."

Still turning from her to Diego and back again, Bernardo looked as if he wished he really couldn’t hear either of them.  Diego only nodded. " And the second reason?" he asked.

"Pain," she said.  For an instant he wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly.  Then he knew he had.  "You have seen that I know how to . . . deal with it," she added quietly.

And he had to admit her argument was sound, but with that remark, he knew he couldn’t give in to it, even so.  "No," he said without meeting her eyes.  "The chances are far too great that he would simply kill you outright.  Then I would be right back where I am now, faced with the same problem, but without your help."  These words sounded so level-headed that he thought he might choke on the ones still stuck in his throat: that the very idea of letting Marigál touch her was unthinkable, whatever was at stake, and that it had even left him cringing inwardly in disgust at his own desire to touch her again.

She looked at him carefully, and by the time he finally did look up at her, he suspected that she already knew how he felt.  "This isn’t a decision we must make today, or even tomorrow," she said.  "Much can happen.  We might find another way altogether of dealing with the problem."

"Oreana," he said in a tone as level as he could muster, "I want your word that you will not endanger yourself in any way without at least talking it over with me first."

She thought for a moment, then said, "Very well.  Te prometo.  But you also have my word that I will do whatever it takes to find another way of locating those hostages."