Aztec Rage (53 page)

He saw my face and stopped.

“Of course,” he muttered, avoiding my eyes, “those are all just baseless rumors.”

“And what do you hear about me, señor? Other than how I bested the French emperor.”

“About you?” He blinked as if he had just become aware that there was a living, breathing human being across from him. “They're afraid of you.”

“They?”

“The gachupines. First you humiliate them in Guanajuato, then you come back to the colony as its only hero of the war against France.” He shook his head. “There has been talk . . .”

“Of what? Killing me?”

“Yes. Rumors that García, the finest duelist in New Spain, would challenge you, but the viceroy quickly squashed the idea.”

“He's protecting me?”

“No, he doesn't care if García kills you. He's afraid you'll kill García or whomever else they send against you, that you will humiliate the gachupines even further, proving once again that a peon can be superior to Spaniards. He's forbidden anyone to challenge you to a duel. He has even tried to quash news of your feats and the commendation from Cádiz, but too many eyes saw the communiqué, and word was soon out. News of your heroism spread only among the educated class, naturally. You will find that few of your own class will admit to having heard of you, unless it is as the notorious bandido—”

“And his amigo,” I interjected.

He glanced around the room. “I have received a pardon for my political sins but would not want to remind the authorities of any other indiscretions.” He cleared his throat. “Having ruffled the feathers of the gachupines, you should go somewhere smaller, where there is less resentment. This is their city, not yours. Nor should you return to Guanajuato. You will not be welcome there. Perhaps you should consider a place like Dolores with that curate Hidalgo. He's known to be tolerant of the lower classes.”

“Señor Mejicano Thinker, I am always amazed that just when I come to respect your opinion about the state of the world, you say something breathtakingly stupid. If you refer to me again as of the lower classes, I will cut off your cojones. Now tell me what else is going on, what is the temper of the times?”

“The colony seethes with the frustrated political ambitions of the criollos,” he said. “Resentment toward the gachupines has increased since the French invaded Spain. Taxes for the war have bled the colony white. The junta has granted the criollos political rights, but the viceroy blocks their enforcement, resisting any and all criollo enfranchisement. The gachupines still treat us like ignorant, incompetent children.”

Criollos and gachupines had abused me for so long, I couldn't commiserate with their woes. As far as I was concerned, Lizardi and the rest of the colony's criollos deserved to be treated as children because they didn't stand up for themselves.

As usual, his notion of liberty, equality, and fraternity only included criollos.

SEVENTY-TWO

P
ATRONS OF THE
city's inns used them primarily as places for drinking and whoring rather than as residences. I couldn't stay at an inn and maintain the image of a caballero. So after hiring Lizardi, who knew the city better than I did, to represent me, I began looking for a house.

I knew that as a peon I would have a difficult time renting a house in a respectable neighborhood. When he found one that suited me, I instructed Lizardi to rent it in his name, with a generous payment for the use of his criollo bloodline. When Lizardi saw that my stay in the capital would profit him, he stopped impugning it.

Meanwhile, I sent a messenger to the region where I had turned Tempest loose and offered a reward for information about the stallion. He was easy to spot; few horses in all the colony stood as tall. I soon stole the stallion back . . . not that the current owner could complain. He had no title to him.

Believing Tempest too dangerous to ride, the owner had put him out to stud. Now the stallion had not only suffered the loss of his harem, he bore the indignity of my weighty frame on his back. The beast showed his gratitude by trying to throw me. I bought a mare to keep him company, and it calmed his temper.

No person of quality in the capital went without a carriage and fine mules, some of which went sixteen hands. I debated whether I could stand riding in a carriage and concluded it was transport for women and merchants, not caballeros. I would ride Tempest when I traveled through the city.

The house I rented in Lizardi's name was small: only two stories in a city where the better homes were almost all three high. However, I didn't need much room. Most large homes not only housed the family on the upper floor—with the servants, kitchen, and storerooms below them—they also had a floor devoted to the master's business.

A high stone wall surrounded my house, and the courtyard featured a spacious fieldstone patio and a stable. The main casa had several verandas, a bountiful garden, and a cascading water fountain.

Once I was settled, I climbed upon the roof with a brandy jug and my silver cigarro box. Lying back, I listened to the night. The righteous chords of a church organ drifted toward me from one direction and a haunting choir of harmonious monks intoning a “Te Deum” wafted in from another. The viceroy required that at dusk, when a house was occupied, an oil or candle lantern had to be hung in front and kept lit until an hour before
dawn, so each house had a light near the front door. The viceroy believed the lights reduced crime, but, to me—someone who had lived a life of crime—his system merely alerted the bandidos as to whether anyone was home.

I heard our night watchman pass by. At nightfall, serenos posted themselves every few hundred paces and stood guard for the homeowners. Armed with only a club to beat off street dogs, the serenos were to shout warnings if they spotted thieves. In reality, most serenos subsisted on homeowner handouts and spent their nights passed out from pulque in doorways.

The night was pleasant with a light breeze. Like Guanajuato, the temperature of the capital did not vary drastically during the year, gracing us with perpetual springtime rather than freezing winters followed by sweltering summers. I was relaxed but not at peace. I still did not have my Isabella.

Had Bruto been standing there, he would have shouted I was twice the fool I'd been in Guanajuato.
Was she not married to a rich nobleman?
he would have fumed.

But I couldn't see a future without Isabella. I was obsessed. I dreamt of running off with her to Havana and starting a new life. I had enough money for a comfortable life but not the fortune she would require. Since I could not offer proof of ownership, I had sold the gems in Cádiz short of their value but like the ranchero who had pastured Tempest, I couldn't complain. Now that I had Tempest back under me, I would ride the Paseo de Bucareli and approach her.

From Lizardi, I had learned more about Isabella's husband. He'd gone broke in Spain and had come to the New World, where his title was worth more than a silver mine. Marrying into wealth, he inherited a fortune when his wife died. Twice as old as Isabella, he was arrogant, ignorant, small of frame, large of waist, and financially incompetent. He was your typical gachupine.

But he was still Isabella's husband and had more to offer than I. Short of slitting his throat—something I gave serious thought to—I didn't know how to win her from him. Still I was determined to win her back . . . or to die trying.

What I didn't know was that
dying
for Isabella was not far from what Señora Fortuna had in mind for me.

SEVENTY-THREE

R
IDING ALONG
A street near the main plaza, I caught the silhouette of a woman in black walking in the distance. A vision of the woman in black who disappeared around the corner in Guanajuato after providing me with boots flashed in my mind.
Isabella!

I urged Tempest on. Hearing me coming, the woman turned to face me.

“Raquel!”

“Juan!”

We stared at each other until I remembered common courtesy and dismounted to stand beside her.

“I can't believe it's you,” I said. “I thought—”

“Yes?”

I grinned at her. “It doesn't matter. What are you doing in the capital?”

“I live here.”

My eye immediately went to her ring finger.

“No, I have not married.”

I blushed from the shame of my past sins.

She smiled sweetly. “Take refreshment with me. Stories of your adventures have more tongues wagging than the wars in Europe.”

We retired to her house, a small, pleasant dwelling facing the Alameda. She lived alone, served only by an india who came during the day to do her shopping and household chores. She still had property and friends in the Bajío and visited the region each year.

“Living alone suits me,” she said, as she poured coffee for me and chocolate for herself. She had a busy life, teaching girls music and poetry. “I throw in a little education about the world around them, too,” she said, laughing. “But not so much that their parents will think I am ruining them for marriage. I always watch what I say to them about politics, not wanting the Viceroy's constables to arrest me as a subversive. I also refrain from criticizing the church's suppression of thought. The Inquisition's nocturnal knock still hammers on our doors.”

We talked about Guanajuato and about my travels since I left the city. Naturally, I gave her a heavily censored version of how I left the colony as a bandido and returned as a hero. And the subject of how I jilted her, walking out on her when troubles pounded on her family's door, never came up. I've never been proud of my actions, but now in my own mind I can argue she was better off without me. Had we married, the attacks on me—that I was the son of a whore—would have disgraced her.

We talked about people we knew in common. She knew Lizardi and that he was an acquaintance of mine.

“We are members of the same literary discussion group,” she said. She said Lizardi was considered brilliant but unreliable. “He's tolerated to an impossible degree by his friends. There's no question he's very progressive in his political thinking, but we are careful not to talk openly in front of him because he's known to offer up his friends when he faces the viceroy's wrath.

“A few months ago the viceroy's constables played a cruel joke on him. They put him in a cell reserved for those scheduled to be executed in the morning. One of the guards borrowed a priest's robe and pretended to take his confession. They say he offered the names of everyone he knew who ever spoke derisively of the viceroy in hopes that it would save him from the gallows.”

I started laughing.

“What's so funny?” she asked.

“Me, my stupidity. I suddenly realized why the viceroy's men showed up in Dolores when I was there. Lizardi betrayed me.”

“The constables arrested Lizardi en route to Méjico City—after he left you in Dolores—but he didn't betray you. He informed on the padre instead. He told the authorities about Padre Hidalgo's illegal activities. They already knew about them, anyway, but I suspect they decided to act out of fear Lizardi would publish stories about the padre's success.”

“That miserable cur . . . after the padre treated us with such generosity.”

Raquel shrugged. “The padre has forgiven him. The padre's heart is an infinite repository of unqualified love.”

I started to ask if she knew Hidalgo personally but then remembered that the padre was in her coach when I struck the lépero who had brushed against my horse.

She stared down at my boots.

“I know,” I said, “they're patched almost beyond further repair, but they have great sentimental value to me. Isabella gave them to me when I was held prisoner in the Guanajuato jail.”

She stared at me for a moment, her lips frozen in a smile. She said, “I can understand your feelings. My own father had a similar pair, which I have always cherished.”