Alejandro Intervenes

It was nearly broad daylight by the time he returned with her to the cave, so he brought both horses inside, thinking he would get Bernardo to put the palomino back where he belonged at some later time.  Meanwhile, Oreana still seemed quite tired and pale.  He had no idea how he would get her back where she belonged—at least not right away.  So once he had unsaddled Tornado and given both animals some grain, he led her through the dark tunnel under the stables.  "Where are we?" she said, half whispering, half yawning.

"You will see soon enough," he told her, deciding finally to scoop her up and carry her in his arms when he reached the bottom of the stairs.  In the room behind his bedroom, he put her down and motioned for her to sit, though there was only the table.  Wearily, she perched on its edge as he took off the sword and pistol, setting them carefully aside.  Then he took off the hat, the mask and the gloves while she added his cape to the pile.  Finally, turning the ring shaped latch on the nearby wall that opened the panel beside the fireplace in his room, he waved her through.  She sized up the situation at once.

"I must get back to my own room," she said.

"Yours is one of the few rooms that aren’t connected to those passageways," he said, "or else I would have taken you there."

She smiled.  "No wonder you were so surprised when I came in that night to fix your arm."

"I still don’t know how you did that."

"But I showed you," she said with a laugh in her voice.  As she took his hands, he thought she seemed almost tipsy, and it occurred to him that when she had said they should find something to eat, she might not have been talking just about bringing him down to earth.  After all, she had not eaten a thing the day before—which was probably why she didn’t get sick from the drug, now that he thought about it.  But at the moment, she was almost too shaky to stand up.

"Maybe you can show me again, a little later on," he said with an amused grin as he pulled her into his arms.  Then he drew back the covers of the bed, picked her up and laid her on it.  "You will be all right here for a while," he said, covering her up.

He turned back to the edge of the mantle and was about to push the spot that would open the panel to the secret passageway, thinking he had to find Bernardo, when the panel opened and the servant appeared, obviously looking for him.  Unable to help glancing past Diego’s tired face to the pile of soft golden curls on his pillow, Bernardo took less than an instant to surmise at least some of what must have gone on the night before.  He tried hard to look nonchalant.  Diego tried equally hard, meanwhile, to say about five different things without uttering a word.  Finally, he could only shrug, roll his eyes and sigh.  "Do you think you could bring us something to eat?"

Bernardo glanced up sideways at him for a moment, trying to wring the faintest traces of a wry smile from his lips.  Then he turned and headed back through the secret room and down the stairs.

Diego sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands, shaking his head.  Then, not knowing what else to do, he laid down on the bed beside her.  By the time Bernardo returned, he found them both asleep like children.  Shaking his head, he let creep across his face the worried look he would never have let Diego see.  Then, quietly, he set the tray of food beside the bed and went off to tend to Tornado.

When Diego awoke, she was gone.  He had no idea how long he had slept, or what time it was.  And if he hadn’t still been almost fully dressed and more than a little hungry, he would have been sure he had dreamed the whole thing.  As he sat up, he noticed a plate of fruit and a few cakes of fresh white asadero. (1)  Then he saw Bernardo sitting in a chair by the door, watching, in case any of the chamber maids, or Don Alejandro, should knock.

The servant stood up quickly as Diego reached for an orange, then came to help him pull off the boots he still wore.  After Diego had finished eating, he did start to feel a bit more alert than he had in a while.  Colors and sounds got just a little sharper.  But he still had no idea what to say to Bernardo that would even begin to explain, let alone excuse, what he had done.  Nor did he need to hear Bernardo say a word to know how foolish and impetuous a thing it was, for he was already telling himself the same things.

But finally, once he had washed and shaved and put on clean clothes, he started to feel a little less silly.  Considering all the impetuous things he had ever done in his life, this probably didn’t rank right at the top of the list.  As he shrugged into his jacket and began to tie his tie, Bernardo took a stiff whisk broom to his back.  Then, coming around to the shoulder, he fixed Diego with a glance that said at least five different things, ending with a trace of something wistful that, with an affectionate pat on the arm, melted into a faint quizzical smile.

Suddenly neither of them could keep a straight face.  Diego leaned against the desk and laughed until his ribs hurt, and watching him only made Bernardo laugh harder.  "Well, I guess it could have been worse," said Diego at last, catching his breath.  "I could have fallen for a married woman.  I could have married a fallen woman.  I could have fallen off a cliff."  They laughed like fools.

Finally, Bernardo recovered enough to finish whisking the sleeve of the jacket, and Diego concluded that maybe he should eat something more, since he still seemed just a bit too giddy.  "So where is she?" he said, shaking his head as he picked up another orange.

Bernardo glanced at the door, then opened an imaginary book.

"Downstairs.  In the library.  Has she spoken to my father yet?"

Bernardo nodded, then indicated that she had told Alejandro he was sick again.

Diego shook his head and rolled his eyes.  "We had better get down there," he said, setting the orange aside, "before she convinces him to take her to this dance without me.  Te digo, Bernardo, I do not believe I have ever met anyone more stubborn or determined."

Bernardo only shrugged and nodded noncommittally as he followed the young man out the door and down the stairs.

She sat behind his father’s desk, the top of which was littered by now with several large sheets of heavy cotton paper.  In her hand she held a quill, poised just above the inkwell, but she seemed to be concentrating so hard on the papers that she didn’t even notice the ink staining her fingers.

With a glance, Diego told Bernardo to stay outside and keep watch in case his father should come in.  Then he went to stand behind her.  He had assumed she was writing another letter, though he had no idea who the recipient might be.  Instead, he saw that she was drawing.  And when he got near enough to see what she was drawing, the images sent a shudder through him so deep that, like an earthquake, they seemed to leave permanent changes on his mental landscape.

"You did see it, too, didn’t you," she said quietly without looking up, as if she could feel his presence as easily as she felt the surface of the desk.  Still reeling, he said nothing.  He could only stare at the sketch of the mission church with its heavy iron gates, the cobblestone path that led up to the large wooden doors with their big bronze strap hinges, the rose bushes, the poinsettias, and even the statues resting in the alcoves just below the scalloped roof line and, beyond it, the open arch that framed the large brass bell.  "But something is still wrong," she added, tilting her head and frowning a little.

"There— " he heard himself say as he pointed to the statue on the lower right, "that one should be holding a sword."

"Sí. . . ."  She dipped the pen into the inkwell, then moved her hand slowly and deliberately over the page, adding just a few careful lines.  Then her eyes widened.  "San Miguel . . . ."

"But there is no San Miguel mission south of here," he said, leaning over her.  "There is only San Juan Capistrano, then San Luis Rey, then San Diego.  The mission of San Miguel is north of here, and it looks nothing at all like this."

With the plumed end of the quill, she pointed to the topmost figure.  "But this is Santo Domingo, no?  This is a Dominican mission, not Franciscan.  That means this mission is nowhere in Alta California.  It must be somewhere else entirely."

Diego stood up feeling faint, wishing now that he had taken the time to eat another orange.  "The Dominicans still have missions south of here," he said.  "South of San Diego.  In Baja."

"Sí. . . ." She nodded.  "And the inquisitors are usually Dominican priests.  So this must be where they have taken Arturo.  You have seen these other images also, no?" she added.  As he bent over the desk again, he could only nod.  He felt stunned, as if he had just found someone prowling through the most intimate parts of his mind, or as if some imaginary being from a childhood fantasy had just materialized right in front of him.  Though he barely remembered the tannery, the trees that hugged the riverbank or the blacksmith shop, her drawings brought them all rushing back to him with such force that he thought he might never forget them again.

"How are you able to do this?" he asked finally.

"I told you I have had some training," she said, looking up at him at last.  Then her eyes softened as she seemed to realize exactly what he was feeling.  "My aunts say sharing one’s dreams can be even more intimate than lovemaking," she said, trying unsuccessfully to hold his gaze.  "I had never done that before either."

When he realized that she too was feeling uneasy, his own uneasiness melted and suddenly all he wanted to do was pull her up into his arms again and kiss her, nor did he need to be told that she ached for his touch.  Laying the pen aside, she laced her fingers, then brought them to her lips as if to prevent herself from reaching for him.  "We must ride to this mission," she said.  "We must leave as soon as possible."

Diego shook his head.  "We still do not know the name of it, or how far away it is," he said.  "In fact, we really do not know if it even exists.  That we both dreamed of it does not make it real."

Oreana rolled her eyes in frustration.  "It is real," she said.  "How can I convince you?"

Diego pondered this question for a moment.  Then he said, "What about that priest, the one you recognized from long ago?  You asked me if it was Señor Marigál.  Maybe if you could make a sketch of him, I could— "

"No," she said flatly. "I cannot."

"Why?"

Oreana sighed a long, nervous sigh, glancing around the room as if she were looking for an answer.  Finally, she said, "Because if he is who I think he is, he already knows too much.  And to draw him would be, in some sense, to conjure him, to evoke him, to invite him into our minds.  Bad enough to confront him in the flesh.  Entiendes?"

"No."  Diego turned around to sit on the edge of the desk and folded his arms, cupping an elbow with one hand, his chin with the other.  "I do not pretend to understand any of this.  But I do understand that I cannot simply run off to chase mirages."

"Of course," said Oreana, nodding as she bent to rest her forehead in her hands.  Then she straightened herself and frowned thoughtfully.  "But if this is a real place, then perhaps someone else would recognize it.  If we could find even one other person who had actually seen this mission and knew where it was, would that convince you?"

"I suppose," he said.  "But where could we find such a person between now and tonight?  And how could we even begin to explain how we came to possess such drawings of a place we do not know?"

"We could say we found them.  Perhaps they were in a suitcase that fell off a coach," she said, gazing at the space between her hands, as if she were trying to visualize the whole scenario.  "And maybe we are hoping to find its owner, who may very well have ties to this mission."

"Yes."  Diego nodded thoughtfully.  "But how do we go into town without being noticed by Marigál?  If we start to ask around— "

"We do not go into town," she said.  "We go to Padre Felipe.  He can do the asking for us.  He may even know this place himself."

"We have very little time."  Diego got to his feet and walked to the door, then motioned for Bernardo to come in.  "Go pack a small satchel," he said.  "Just fill it with old clothes, whatever you can find, and bring it back here quickly.  Then go saddle the horses."

Bernardo, though he looked a bit puzzled, spun on his heel and headed off.  Then Diego went back to the desk to stand behind Oreana as she gathered up the drawings.  "If we do find someone who knows the location of this place, I will ride to it," he said, "but you must stay here and look after my father.  You must think of something to tell him, and you must protect him from Marigál.  Can you do this?"

She pressed her lips together and nodded without looking up.  "I will let him think you got word from Urbino."  Then, as he moved to the side of the chair, she did look up at him, and he saw her eyes filling up with wonder, the way they had the night before with her face framed between his forearms.  "It would make more sense," she said softly, "if I went and you stayed here."

"It would not make sense to my father," he said, taking the back of the chair in one hand, as he let his other hand come lightly to rest on the edge of the desk near hers.  "How could I tell him I let you go off to San Diego by yourself?"

She leaned against the back of the chair, and suddenly he felt as if they were once again enveloped in the glowing circle of light they had created, as if she had somehow taken all that energy and wrapped it around him.  So overwhelming was the sense he felt of being loved that he thought he might cry out from the sharp sweetness of it.

As she started to reach for his hand, it was all he could do not to kiss her, but then, suddenly, her eyes widened.  She snatched the quill off the desktop and hid it in her lap, and without even looking, he knew his father would be standing in the doorway.  She turned away, and he let go of the chair and straightened up, but he knew it was already too late.

"Well," said the old man, "it is good to see that you are feeling better, my son.  For a while, we thought you might have been taken ill again."

"No, no," Diego shrugged.  "I just—I didn’t get to sleep until late."

"I see."  As Alejandro walked into the room, coming to stand in front of the desk, Diego had no idea what he would say in his own defense—or how much his father had surmised.  But even if he hadn’t guessed the whole truth, he would hardly be as understanding as Bernardo.  "Why, what charming drawings," he added, glancing at the papers on the desktop.  "Where did you get these?"

Oreana swallowed hard.  "Sí," she said.  "It seems like a very pleasant place."

"Bernardo found them," Diego said at last.  "They were in an old satchel.  We think it may have fallen off a coach.  Now we are wondering if there might be any way to return them to the owner, if we only knew where this mission was."

As he spoke, he saw that Bernardo had appeared in the doorway with a satchel in his hands.  Clearly he had heard enough of the exchange by now to know that he needed to let Alejandro see the bag, but he hadn’t seen enough of the unspoken dialogue to understand the amount of tension he felt in the air.  Backing up awkwardly, he tried to read the message in Diego’s eyes, but a moment later Alejandro simply glanced over at him, taking note of the satchel.  Then he casually picked up the first drawing in the pile, studied it for a moment, and finally laid it aside to examine the others.

"Well, I think I can help you there," he said.  Oreana’s eyes widened as she shot Diego a quick glance.  "This," Alejandro went on, "is the mission del Descanso de San Miguelito.  It has only been in existence for eight or nine years now.  But once, while you were away in Spain, I visited there on my way to the mission of Santo Tomas in Baja.  There  they produce some of the finest wines in all of California, you know.  I brought some of our own root stock from there."

"Oh?  I did not know this."

"Yes," Alejandro went on, "el Descanso is a hard day’s ride south of San Diego.  One must go southeast from the marshlands at the southern end of the bay, up into the hills.  But then the road leads back down toward the coast.  A pleasant place indeed," he mused, studying the sketch of the bay.  Then he set all the drawings back down on the desk in front of Oreana and said, "Would you excuse us for a while, my dear?  I must speak with my son in private.  Diego," he said in a tone as gentle as he could make it, "would you please come with me."  But Diego knew it was not a request.

Oreana glanced up at him, then quickly at Alejandro, then down at her hands.  "Certainly, Don Alejandro," she said.

His father simply headed for the door, expecting him to follow.  And Diego did not delay.  But as he reached the doorway, he caught her glance again and held it as if it were her hand.  Then, closing the library door, he followed his father into the sala.

Alejandro stood resting one hand on the edge of the big table, his head slightly cocked as he scrutinized his son from head to foot.  Then folding his arms and leaning back against the table, he wrapped his fingers carefully around his bearded chin.

"So—how long has this been going on?"

Diego looked down.  There was no point in trying to lie.  "I don’t know," he said.  "It could have been from the first moment I saw her."

"You do love her, then?"

"Yes."  It seemed like so small a word for all the meaning it held that he started to add more, but then his father went on.

"A great deal, I take it."

"Yes, Father.  More than I ever— "

"And she feels the same about you?"

Diego nodded.  "She has said so, and I believe her."

Alejandro sighed deeply, then stood up and walked over to the fireplace.  "I suppose that it stands to reason," he said.

"It was that obvious, eh?"

"As obvious as the measles."  His father turned around to face him squarely.  "You know, of course, that Urbino will not take this lightly.  He will surely try to kill you.  And he would have some justification.  Do you have the least idea what you intend to do about him?"

"Well, Father, I—I am not so sure he will be that big a problem."

"Not that big a problem?"  The old man’s eyes glittered out from under his brows.  "Not that big a problem?  Diego, this is what I have been trying to tell you for years.  Son, a man must learn to defend himself.  You know, you have been quite lucky on any number of occasions in the past.  But this is a very personal matter.  No one else could justify interfering.  And in a duel, you would be no match for a man even of Urbino’s limited skills.  Do you not see?"

Diego nodded.  Unfortunately, he saw all too well.  There was nothing he could say right now that would reassure Alejandro de la Vega—not even if he told him who Zorro was—since, at the moment, Zorro was in potentially far more danger than Alejandro’s son.  All Diego could do was fall back on the only defense he could make, though he knew by now just what the reaction would be.  "Well, Father," he said, "of course I can see why you are upset.  But I believe there might be a peaceful way out of this predicament.  I can talk to Urbino.  He seems like a reasonable man.  Why should he wish to marry a woman who does not love him?  If he really cares for her, would he not want her to be happy?"

Alejandro had taken to pacing the floor between the table and the fireplace.  Now he paused to turn and brace Diego with an incredulous stare.  "Son, you know better than that," he said.  "In the first place, we both know Urbino may not even be aware that such a thing as her happiness exists apart from his own.  In the second place, even if he were a less selfish man, this is an affair of honor.  It is not a matter of reason.  It is not even about her, really."

"Well, I agree that honor is important," Diego said with a shrug.  "But what honor can there be, then, in fighting with someone who, in the first place, cannot defend himself and who, in the second place, may actually have saved him from a bad marriage?"

"How can you be so dispassionate about this whole thing?"  Alejandro waved his hands in front of him as if he were trying to grasp the answer by the throat.  "Love is not some intellectual issue on which one simply takes a position and defends it in debate.  It does not bow to logic."

"So what would you have me do, Father?"  By now in spite of himself Diego was finding it hard to keep the edge out of his own voice.  "Would you have me take up fencing between now and Urbino’s return?  Should I try to kill a man I barely know, a business associate, a man who has been a guest under our own roof?  Besides— " he looked away, thinking it better to admit this now— "she hasn’t even agreed to marry me anyway."

"Then she may have better sense than you," said Alejandro in a mildly caustic tone.  "And she must really love you.  She is probably trying to save your life.  And in any case, how could she agree to marry a man who would not—or could not—fight for her?"

Suddenly, Diego realized that there was something he had wanted to tell his father on this score for at least a while now.  He took a step toward the old man, eyes narrowing.  "You know, Father," he said, "not all women need to be treated like children.  She is not without a mind of her own.  She is quite capable of deciding for herself what she wants, and of defending her decisions.  If Urbino will not listen to me, I still think he will have no choice but to respect her wishes."

Alejandro squinted hard at him.  "Are you saying that this is not your fight but hers?  Well, I do hope you can see how Urbino might disagree."

"We can both talk to him.  She would not want either of us hurt because of her."

"Diego— " By now there was something almost desperate in his father’s tone that made him wish he hadn’t said anything.  He started to speak but then fell silent, not wanting to make matters worse.  Alejandro sighed deeply.  "Perhaps one day, my son, you will know what it is like to love someone whose life matters more to you than your own—someone you would fight for, even die for.  I know she is bright and self-reliant.  She reminds me more than a little of your mother.  But one day, if you ever have a son, then perhaps you will begin to understand what I mean."

Diego gulped hard.  The anguish in his father’s voice was as clear to him as the anguish he felt welling up in his own eyes.  Closing them, he tried desperately to think of something he could say or do that would make it subside, but there was nothing.  Too gruff to touch and too stubborn to give up even his misgivings without a fight, Alejandro finally walked back to the fireplace to stare down at the cold bare hearth.  After a moment, Diego dared to go stand beside him.

"Father," he said, "can you not give me even a little bit of your trust?  I really do not believe I will have to fight Don Urbino."

Alejandro looked up sharply.  "You are not planning to do anything stupid, are you?"

Diego tried to smile.  "You mean besides what I have already done?"

"You know quite well what I mean.  You think running off with her will solve anything?"

"Running off with her . . . ?"  He tried hard not to sound as startled as he was, though he knew that even the effort itself would be heard as an admission of guilt.  Clearly, the satchel had been a mistake.  "Father, I assure you that— "

"Good," said Alejandro abruptly.  "When Urbino returns, then we will all try to—reason with him.  And if he will not listen, well, then we will all do what honor demands.  Meanwhile I would suggest that you and the young lady start making whatever preparations you need to make to get ready for this dance tonight.  Unless you intend to tell me you have other plans?"

"No."

"Very well.  It is good that the two of you will be seen together in public.  The de la Vegas do not run away.  If we intend to do something, then we do it.  I will expect you both to be ready to leave here at seven," Alejandro added finally, in a quiet tone, yet one clearly meant to remind his son that in California a father could still legally have his grown children flogged for disobedience.

Stunned, Diego could only watch as his father turned and left the sala.  When he returned to the library, he found Oreana still sitting at the desk, waiting for him.  "He was worried about you and Urbino, sí?" she said, looking up.  "Did you tell him?"

"No.  Not everything."  Diego shook his head.  "But I hope you have something to wear to an abduction," he added, "since it seems that this evening we will both be enjoying the hospitality of the alcalde."