Luis was waiting for me when I came out of the viceroy's chamber.

"I will escort Don Carlos from the building," he told the viceroy's secretary.

As we walked, Luis asked if the viceroy had given me adequate assurances concerning my "difficulties."

"He has been most generous," I said.

"Elena has suggested that you may wish to meet some of our city's more eligible women. Few places on earth boast women and horses that are as well-bred and beautifully proportioned as in this city. As your own father may have told you, there is a great deal of similarity between how one handles a fine woman and a fine horse."

I could not suppress a grin. If Elena could have heard this again!

"I'm afraid my father never compared my mother to a horse; but perhaps he was not the master of either, which I'm sure your own father was."

"My father is the master of nothing, not even the cards and drink he squanders his life on."

Luis's voice had turned hard and angry. His short temper inspired me to provoke him further.

"Your gracious offer to introduce me to the ladies of your city is most generous. And as soon as my wound has healed, I shall accept your kindness." I stopped and faced him. "You know, senor, I fell in love with the lovely Elena and had hoped she would return my affection. I was saddened to learn she was betrothed."

Luis's veneer of civility vanished. For a tense moment I believed he would draw his sword in the viceroy's palace, all of which pleased me greatly.

"Good day, senor," I said, with a curt nod and bow. I turned my back to him and left, bearing an uneasy feeling between my shoulder blades that a dagger might find its way there.

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN

"You did what?" I directed my exasperation at Mateo in the courtyard of my newly rented quarters. He was not a man who spent his life walking toward the gallows—he ran for the noose.

Mateo fondled his ever-present wine goblet, an expression of smug self-righteousness on his face. He smiled thinly at me through a haze of smoke. "Do you wish to discuss this matter calmly and quietly or would you rather we trumpeted it to your servants and neighbors."

I sat down. "Tell me what madness drove you to visit Don Silvestre. Start at the beginning so I will know whether to leave town... or garrote you."

He shook his head and tried to look innocent, which hardly rang true: His face was a battlefield of those scars that each bore a woman's name.

"Bastardo, my compadre—"

"Ex-compadre."

"I went to the house of your old family friend, Don Silvestre, a fine old caballero. There is snow on his head, his legs are weak at the knees, not to mention bowed from a lifetime on the saddle, but fire still burns in his heart. He is as you imagined him—mostly blind. I made the pretense of asking to examine his eyepiece. Without it, he could not count my fingers a foot from his nose."

"I hope you broke the glass."

"Of course not. Would a caballero like myself do that to an old knight?"

"Not unless it would assist you at a cantina's card table or into a woman's bed."

He sighed and emptied the goblet with a long drink. He refilled it before he went on with his story.

"We shall save breaking the old man's eyepiece to another day," he said.

"Soto's party has been changed to the viceroy's palace. The old man will probably attend."

"I already know that. He will not just attend, he is riding with us in our carriage."

"Santa Maria, Holy Mother of God." I got down on my knees and prayed before a stone angel pouring water into the patio fountain. "Save me from this madman, Holy Madre, and have God send lightning to strike him down."

"Bastardo, you panic too easily. You must face life's setbacks with equanimity, not hysteria. Now get up off your knees. I am not your priest."

I got to my feet. "Tell me how I am to ride in a carriage to the viceroy's ball with a man who will expose me as a fake the moment he sees me."

"The old man already believes you are Don Carlos because I have told him you are Don Carlos. You do not have to convince him. What you have to do is avoid un-convincing him. It will be dark when we pick him up. The street boy who spies for you will suddenly rush out of the darkness, grab his eyeglass, and run away. Even if, God forbid, the attack fails, Don Silvestre still will not recognize you. He has to get very close even to see with his eyeglass. Like any old caballero, he is vain about his age and physical condition. He is not only half blind but half deaf. If you speak quietly when you are forced to speak, he will not notice. Also, I will be there to carry the conversation. Don Silvestre does not like you because you have violated the caballero's code of honor. He will not speak to you unless he has to. However, after explaining to him the true circumstance of the crimes in Spain..."

"Si, the true circumstance of my crimes. Why don't you let me know those circumstances."

He nicked ashes off the end of his tobacco roll. "What you did, of course, was protect the family honor."

"I beat my fiance's father with a candlestick and stole her dowry."

"Ah, Bastardo, you believe everything you hear, and so does Don Silvestre. A friend writes him from Spain and says young Don Carlos is a thief and a blackguard. He believes it. But now another friend, me, has come and told him the truth."

"What is the truth? Will you tell me before I put my sword in my throat."

"The truth is that you took the blame for your older brother."

It stunned me. I repeated the words carefully. Than a second time, savoring them. "I took the blame for my older brother—to protect the family name."

I paced back and forth, feeling the words, getting into the mood of the comedia that Mateo was constructing. "Eh, my brother, the heir to the title and the family fortune, the possessor of our family's good name and honor, is a scoundrel. He violates my bride-to-be and steals my dowry. What is the honorable thing to do? If I kill him, as he so well deserves, the truth will come out, and our proud family name will be ruined. No, there is only one thing for me to do. I am the younger brother, heir to nothing, possessor of nothing. I assume the blame for my brother's foul deeds, save the family honor, and incur the punishment."

I bowed and saluted my friend with my hat. "Mateo Rosas, you are a true genius. When you told me you had constructed a comedia for the don, I saw only disaster. If we presented this play in Mexico City and Seville, we would be hailed as heroes of the quill and paper. This play would gain us the fortune we never acquired—at least legally."

Mateo tried to appear modest. "Don Silvestre accepted the story as readily as Moses accepted the word of God. It is now chiseled in stone in the old man's mind. He was embellishing upon it as I explained it to Elena."

Did I hear him right? Did he just say that he had explained it to Elena? Did he also whisper it in the viceroy's ear? Amigos, was I correct in my assumption that Mateo would someday get me hanged if I was not duly punished for my own crimes?

"Bastardo, you better have some of this wine. Your face was the color of death, and now it is turning to fire."

"When did you see Elena?"

"This afternoon, when she came to Don Silvestre's after your meeting with the viceroy."

"Why did she go to Don Silvestre's?"

"To talk to the old man about you. She wanted the details of your crimes, to see if she could assist you in gaining pardon."