As I came out the gate, a carriage carrying the viceroy’s aide pulled up and Riego hailed me.
“I have come to personally deliver an invitation,” he said.
“Excellent,” was all I could manage.
He eyed me narrowly and shook his head. “You have gained a reputation as being unsociable, no doubt disappointing many a mother with unmarried daughters.”
“I’m sorry, Don Domingo, my wounds…”
“Wounds? You didn’t tell me you were shot in the battle with the bandidos.”
“Not shot,” I said, cursing myself for letting my tongue put me into a pile of manure up to my neck. “But I am a bit traumatized by all the excitement.”
“Well, you look surprisingly healthy and vigorous for having such feelings. But this is an invitation you would dare not fail to accept. The viceroy is giving a costume ball in three days to welcome a new bishop. Everyone of importance will be there, including the Marquis del Valle, so it would be well for you to attend.” He eyed me again. “It would also aid you when you plead your case about the inheritance to the viceroy.”
I nodded as if I understood what he meant and was left sitting on Rojo, wondering, as the carriage pulled away. It finally got through my thick head, though. He was telling me that I had better show up at the ball and pay my respects to the viceroy because I would have to go before him to get money released.
That was reason enough to attend a gathering where I might be recognized. But there was also another very good reason.
“Everyone of importance” must include the daughter of a rich merchant, no?
I just hoped that it also didn’t include the uncle from Guadalajara who could instantly disrobe me as a fraud.
The viceroy’s aide had also said the Marquis del Valle would be there. Did that mean his older brother, El Mestizo, would attend, too? If so, that made it three people who could expose me as a fraud just with a glance in my direction.
The thought of going back into the house and throwing whatever valuables I could find into a bag tempted me for a moment, but I calmed myself down as I touched the locket that hung from a simple cord around my neck. Inside was a cameo of the young woman’s likeness reflected by the carving of her mother’s in ivory.
Was it worth taking such a great risk just to look into those lovely green eyes again?
PART 7
ONCE A LÉPERO, ALWAYS A LÉPERO.
FIFTY-SIX
A COSTUME BALL. I rubbed my jaw and thought some more. I knew the gachupins sometimes dressed up in costumes for their celebrations, because many times in Oaxaca I would see them in carriages on the way to such an event, but I couldn’t envision what people did at a ball. Or what I was supposed to wear. And I didn’t dare ask the majordomo—not directly at least. So I broached the subject indirectly.
“I was not fond of such affairs in Spain and I’m not enthused about attending one here in the colony. What did my uncle say about these affairs?”
“He enjoyed the music, dancing, women in their beautiful gowns, and spirited conversation over fine wine and brandy.”
Ah, I got it, it was like a night at a whorehouse, except the drinks were more expensive.
“What costume did my uncle prefer?”
“A bandido.”
I couldn’t keep a straight face.
“We still have the costume if you would care to wear it,” the majordomo said, misinterpreting my reaction as enthusiasm.
“No—no, it would bring back too many memories.”
“Of course, señor, forgive me for my ignorance.”
I went to the stable to brush Rojo down and talk it over with him. Not that I had any intention of showing up at the ball dressed as a highwayman. Eh, not only would the redheaded Mercedes recognize me, but there would probably be other gachupins at the ball whose gold I had taken after shoving a pistola in their face.
“What do you think?” I asked Rojo, not speaking the threat out loud but mentally pondering the possibility not only that I could meet up with the three people I’ve identified as being a threat to my life and freedom but also that at the party there could be someone I had robbed.
A few times when the opportunity arose and I had to act fast, I had pulled out my dagger or pistola and took a man’s purse without having a mask on, but that was rare. Still, I would hate to come face-to-face with someone whose throat I had kept a knife on while I rifled their pockets.
Eh—if eyes are windows to the soul as the poets say, what were the chances of someone looking into mine and seeing a thief?
“It’s not fair,” I told Rojo, certain that he understood what I meant even though I couldn’t speak the unfairness aloud for fear that the stable man would hear me.
All my past sins seemed to be coming back to haunt me just when I was on the verge of amassing a gachupin’s fortune.
The majordomo interrupted my thoughts as he cleared his throat to let his presence be known.
“Sorry, señor, but I forgot to tell you. Many of the guests do not wear a full costume to the ball, but just an eye mask.”
Ah … perfect. An eye mask would hide the part of my face Mercedes had seen.
My cleverness is only exceeded by my brilliance.
FIFTY-SEVEN
AS I EYED myself in the mirror, I couldn’t keep an expression of disgust off my face at the look of the clothes the tailor had selected for me to wear to the costume ball.
“All the men will be dressed in a similar fashion except the clergy,” he said, when he saw my look. “I realize we are only imitating what is being worn in Madrid and Caldez, Señor Rios, but I will do my best to ensure that your outfit will not embarrass you.”
He misinterpreted my feelings. He thought I wanted to be more fashionable. Ayyo! I hated the clothes male gachupins wore to parties. They dressed as peacocks, not men.
Mind you, this was not a costume, but the typical clothes worn by a gachupin to a social gathering, to which I planned to add only an eye mask.
The tailor had outfitted me in a small, narrow black hat with a tall red feather sticking up, a ruffled collar of white silk that strangled me, and a short, waist-length jacket made of layers of black silk sown with gold thread and patterned with tiny, semiprecious stones.
Bad enough that the top half of my body was clothed in materials only a woman should wear, the worst was below my waist. Ballooning, baglike breeches came from the waist down almost to my knees. From the knees, tight gray hose covered my legs.
The pointed-toed shoes squeezing my flat, wide feet were little more than slippers.
Eh, I have gone barefooted, worn sandals made from the hard maguey plant, and gotten my first pair of leather boots off the feet of a caballero at gunpoint. I felt like a fop in slippers.
With the breeches ballooning out from my waist to knees and tight silk stockings covering my legs like another layer of skin, I looked like a fat man on sticks.
The one thing I did not object to was a medallion of St. Dominic hanging from a heavy silver chain around my neck. The saint was the founder of the church order that had dominated the Inquisition since the bloodthirsty Torquemada started burning nonbelievers at the stake. I chose it from my uncle’s collection because the new bishop was a Dominican and in charge of the Inquisition for the colony.
Paying homage to the Inquisition seemed a very smart move, I thought, since I might someday taste its whips and chains.
Looking in the mirror, all I could do was give a sad sigh, after which I calmed the tailor because he once again thought the clothes were not fashionable enough.
Sí, I looked like a rich gachupin, dressed in clothes that even Cortés the conqueror had worn when he went to a ball, but gachupins grew up wearing these ridiculous outfits.
Dressing as a caballero, even with the fancy trim that was displayed on the paseo, would have suited me fine, but while a horseman’s outfit was a “costume” to me, it was ordinary male daytime clothing to most gachupins.
My common bl
ood also boiled because these were not the clothes of a man who had worked with his hands, even if the past few years my hands had held pistolas during working hours.
Since I was going to wear a black eye mask, I considered for about one second dressing as I did when I was a highwayman—clothes worn by hacienda vaqueros. I immediately put aside the thought as stupid since that was the way I was dressed when I robbed Mercedes—and many others.
One costume I could think of that would guarantee that no one recognized me was to come as an Inquisition torturer with a hood over my head. But I didn’t think the new bishop would be amused if I portrayed a character that everyone knew existed but only whispered about for fear that the ears of the church—which were everywhere—would hear them.
The tailor left, insulted that I hadn’t judged his clothes as fashionable as those found in Madrid. I took off the fancy ball clothes, put on the worn leather shirt and pants I preferred when working with Rojo, and went down to the stable to brush him and think about how I would manage to look perfectly natural in clothes in which I felt like a clown.
My street life still affected me. I had adapted well to vaqueros’ clothes, even the finer ones worn by hacienda owners when they rode out to watch cattle or horses being herded, but I felt ridiculous dressed in silk stockings with a ruffled collar around my neck and a big red feather sticking up like a flag out of a small hat.
“You’d give me a good kick if you saw me,” I told Rojo.
The problem wasn’t just a matter of clothing but whether I would feel natural at the party. If I came across as not comfortable in my skin, a perceptive person would see through to my lépero blood.
The solution to my costume dilemma dawned on me as I stroked the stallion’s chest.
“That’s it,” I told Rojo.
I realized that the one costume that would not expose me as a fraudulent gachupin was the very one I had worn for so long and still was not able to get out of my blood after many years.
I whispered the word in the stallion’s ear.
“What do you think, Rojo?”
The stallion gave me a loud neigh and shook his head with approval.
FIFTY-EIGHT
COSTUMED IN CLOTHES I felt comfortable wearing, I still felt more like a prisoner on the way to the gallows than an honored guest going to a ball.
The feeling of being trapped was heightened by the fact that I was in a carriage rather than on my stallion. I would be better off running away on foot and jumping into the lake to swim from the city than trying to make a quick escape in a coach.
Not that my carriage wasn’t a handsome thing. Made of oak and cedar, it was trimmed with a great deal of silver plate from the mine Uncle Ramos had had an interest in. The interior was plush green velvet and rich leather, with gleaming gold fittings.
The carriage’s tack was just as richly decorated, heavy with gold lace and silver trim on the harnesses of the two carriage horses. Their black legs were trimmed with silk stockings down to their ankles.
I felt sorry for them. Though they were both gilded, they were embarrassed having to wear silk stockings. Even more ridiculous was that their horseshoes were made of silver. Meshed with a bit of iron to increase hardness, the silver shoes would still only last for the trip to the ball and back home.
Horseshoes worn once just so another gachupin might catch the sight of the expensive shoes as the horses lifted their legs … Ayyo! Many of the indios and mestizos in the colony went to bed hungry so vain gachupins could have their horses prance in silver horseshoes.
Looking at the gold fittings and abundant silver plating, my bandido mentality immediately began calculating that I could buy a good-sized ranchero and a herd of horses by just stealing the precious metals from the carriage—and it wouldn’t be stealing, eh? Antonio is dead, and I deserve payment for avenging in blood his murder.
I am certain that the good Lord wanted me rewarded for my good deeds and would sanction my taking anything I could get my hands on. Which I intended to do as soon as I was able.
The viceroy’s aide said I would be able to get the great man’s ear tonight. I would convince him to release my money even if I had to cut his ears off.
Feeling like a trapped animal on the way to slaughter as my carriage carried me along city streets to the viceroy’s ball, my anxiety level took a giant leap as the carriage pulled up in front of the palace.
“Señor Antonio de los Rios, guest of the viceroy,” my coachman-groom announced as he brought the carriage to a halt.
A guardsman opened my carriage door.
“Welcome, señor—huh?”
He stammered and froze as he stared at me.
FIFTY-NINE
WORD ABOUT ME passed quickly up the line of guards as I made my way to the ballroom. After the first stares and gapes, I was greeted with grins and laughter.
I was tempted to ask them—eh, amigos, have you never seen a lépero before?
Tomorrow I would be the subject of raging gossip at the marketplace. I was a scandal, of course, not at the ball, because I hadn’t entered the ballroom yet, but back at my house, where my servants had stood by wide-eyed and openmouthed as I demanded dirty clothes from the stable man.
“He’s about my size,” I told the majordomo.
Unable to face the world as a gachupin with skin-tight silk stockings, I fell back on a role that came natural to me: lépero.
“No clean clothes, mind you,” I instructed the majordomo. “Bring me the clothes he was wearing earlier when he cleaned the stable.”
Insanity. I saw it in the faces of my servants as I sent them scurrying to gather what I needed to make me a filthy beggar again.
Hair messed, clothes and face with soot on them, my face and feet almost black from soot, a little smell of manure … I could well pass for a lépero. I have to admit, even the smell felt natural to me.
It wasn’t until I approached the doorway into the ballroom that my heart began beating in my throat as I wondered whether a dozen people were going to start shouting “bandido!” and accuse me of having stolen their gold and jewels.
The doors swept open as if by magic, and, with my mind numb, I heard the announcement: “Señor Don Antonio de los Rios!”
Ayyo! For a moment I wondered who the hell that was.
SIXTY
TIME STOOD STILL. A moment in my life paused as I entered, and every eye in the room, from the aristocratic viceroy from Spain who ruled the colony with the power of a king to two hundred of the richest, most powerful, and most prestigious citizens of New Spain, turned to me.
I heard gasps. Exclamations. A mi Dios or two or three.
My heart plugged my throat, and I stood at the top of the entrance stairs and stared down as hundreds of eyes stared up at me.
Suddenly a man with a white beard, a red slash across his chest full of medals and honors, and the tallest peacock feather in the room in his hat stepped toward me. From his clothes I guessed who he was: His Excellency Don Gastón Carrillo de Peralta y Bosquete, 3rd Marquis de Falces, by the grace of God and His Majesty the King, Viceroy of New Spain.
“Bravo, Señor Rios, you have caught the true spirit of the lépero of the colony in your clothing. But—” He shook a finger at me. “Can you beg like one?”
“Akkkk!” I don’t know where it came from; it wasn’t a human sound but a howl that had escaped the deepest bowels of hell. I exploded with it as I came off the stairs groveling, whining, pleading to God, to the saints—all of them—and to the charity in the hearts of every Christian person for a simple handout, a bit of food or a coin.
No lépero, not even the lowest, foulest, most voracious had ever reached the pinnacles of whining and pleading that I burst out with.
The viceroy’s jaw dropped, and he stumbled back as I came at him launching a begging attack that would have brought any street swine to a jealous rage had he heard it.
A woman screamed, another fainted, a man grabbed his sword as I got hold of the viceroy’
s leg and stared up at him with the most pathetic face. “A copper, your lordship, a copper so I can feed my children … or buy some pulque,” I added.
He gaped down at me, and then it started in his well-rounded stomach and moved upward, a rumble that came up his throat and out his mouth as a great laugh.
For another moment time stood still in the ballroom, and then the laughter started, becoming guffaws and howls as the crowd imitated the viceroy’s bellows.
Still on my knees, I let my muscles relax, feeling the tension drain out of them as I stared down at the floor and took a deep breath.
I had decided that the best place to hide was in plain sight.
As myself.
SIXTY-ONE
ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT WAS made, and I was instantly forgotten as the most important personage in the colony entered.
I had heard about the younger Martín Cortés ever since I could remember and had been raised in a region where he reigned with royal prerogatives. Seeing him now in the flesh, it was the differences between him and his brother that were most apparent to me.
Don Martín Cortés y Zuniga, 2nd Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, was in his late thirties, a decade younger than his mestizo brother. Not only was the difference in their age and physique apparent, but so were the bloodlines. The marquis was pale white, tall and slender, with features that most women would find handsome, while El Mestizo was shorter, darker, heavier framed, and carried the extra ten years as an added burden.
But the biggest difference was in countenance. No gachupin I had ever seen, not even those with the bloodiest spurs, carried as much sheer arrogance and contempt for whomever his gaze fell upon as did the chosen heir of the conqueror. There was no question that he felt superior to everyone in the room, including the viceroy, who not only had an equal title of nobility, but was endowed in the colony with the powers of a monarch.
Though the Marquis del Valle lacked political power, he was true colonial royalty, while the viceroy was just a powerful administrator. In the colony, criollos’ adoration of Cortés the conqueror was second only to that of God, and his son wore an invisible crown.