Jaime the lépero was crouched nearby as I came onto the street, and I gestured him to me.
"I will be needing your help later. Come to the inn when it is dark."
"Sí, señor. Now I will need an extra payment, my mother is very sick."
"You have no mother. You were spawned by el diablo." I tossed the little liar a reale. "Direct me to an indio sorcerer who sells potions."
He grinned up at me. "Do you need a love potion?"
I groaned. "I need something to calm stormy waters."
¡Ay de mí! An old family friend, eh. Soto told me the old man lived with his daughter. He was half blind and used a single ground glass, a monocle, to assist his vision. My first instinct was to hire thugs to smash his eyepiece, but even half blind he would know me for a fraud. I even thought of having the old man killed or at least beaten unconscious. Unfortunately, I had neither the time nor the stomach for it. The old man was just the beginning of my troubles. What evils had my namesake Don Carlos perpetrated? Avoid arrest? Repay the money and restore the girl's honor? Comfort for her and the child?
I had already discovered in my two conversations with Miguel de Soto that secrets pour from his mouth like water over a dam. By now the whole city would know that my swine maiden tale was a cover for dastardly deeds.
Por Dios! Why had I not kept the identity I had originally planned? I had assumed the skin of a scoundrel. Apparently a thief and spoiler of women. I had worked hard all of my life to shed my thief's persona and become a gentleman. I had now come full circle. I was a gentleman and a thief!
Ay, what had Fray Antonio said about those strange people who live in the land of elephants and tigers, the Hindu? That bad acts in a past life determine present fortune—or misery? That our many lives formed a circle and that bad acts would eventually return us to the same point—or one worse.
I made my way back to the inn to rest before my meeting with the viceroy. Eléna would be back in town by now. Had she already heard the swine maiden's tale? I had already told her of my concern for my "wife and child." Now she would know that, not only had I lied to her about my background, but was a rogue who treated women heartlessly.
I wanted to avoid being a hero, to enter the city quietly. Now I would be the talk of the city, as the dons and doñas argued over whether I should be praised or hanged. Something also told me that the miseries that were being heaped upon me were not over.
When I arrived back at the inn, the innkeeper gave me more startling news.
"Your brother has arrived. He is waiting in your room."
I graciously thanked him. As I walked toward the stairway, my feet moved in a straight line, but my mind screamed for me to run. First, an old friend of the family. Now, Don Carlos's brother. Had his whole family, his whole province, moved to New Spain?
In the hallway above, I drew my sword. I did not want to spill strange blood, but there was no longer any alternative. If I did not kill the brother, the alarm would sound and I would not make it past the causeways before the viceroy's soldados threw me in irons.
I steadied my nerves and drew a deep breath. Then I burst through the door of my room, my blade at the ready.
A one-eyed man looked up at me from the bed where he was enjoying a sack of wine and the mulatta I had refused.
"Eh, Bastardo, put down that sword. Did I not always tell you that as a bladesman, you were a dead man?"
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
Mateo sent the puta out, and I sat in a chair with my feet on the end of the bed as he relaxed back against the pillows. His left eye was covered by a black patch.
I shook my head at the sight of the patch. "And what is the name of that wound, compadre? Margarita? Juanita? Sofia?"
"This one is the duchess."
"Ah, so the duke came back from the wars and caught you in bed with his wife. A cousin to the queen, no less."
"A cousin to the devil, for sure. She sent the duke an 'anonymous' message soon after I began bedding her, thinking, no doubt, that jealousy would win him back."
"How bad is the eye?"
"Bad? There is nothing wrong with it." He lifted the patch to expose a blood red, empty socket. I winced.
"The eye is fine. I just don't have it anymore."
"A sword fight?"
"Nothing so honorable. The duke's men held me while he gouged it. He was about to do the other eye when I broke lose."
"Did you cut his throat or gouge his eyes out?"
"Neither. His throat is fine and so are both his eyes. However, he now pees through a straw."
"Well done. And how did you manage to maim a duke and live?"
He grinned. "By moving very quickly. The last ship of the treasure fleet had sailed from Seville when I reached the docks. I hired a fast coastal runner to chase it down. I caught up to a boat that was having difficulty with its rigging. It had a destination of Hispaniola, not Veracruz. From there a boat put me into Veracruz. When I heard about a clean-shaven man with a scar on his cheek who had saved a lady from pirates, eh, who could it be but my old compadre? Who else would be so foolish as to fight pirates rather than join them?"
"Mateo, I'm in trouble."
"So I have heard, Don Carlos. Even the puta mulatta knows you stole your wife-to-be's dowry from her father's house and fled, leaving her pregnant."
"I did that? What a thief!"
"Worse than a thief. It was cowardly and not honorable. Had you killed the father in a duel, men would hide you from the king's agents in their homes. But to steal a dowry from the father? And severely wound him by hitting him over the head with a candlestick? A candlestick! How can he hold his head-up to his friends after he had been felled by a candlestick? It was a silver candlestick and you stole that, too. Oh, Don Carlos, you are a bad one. You would be in chains right now if Eléna's uncle had not become viceroy."
I advised Mateo of my activities since I left Seville, right up to Soto's dinner invitation. "Those chains and noose you mentioned are still waiting for me. I am going to dinner Saturday at the house of Miguel de Soto's. Another guest will be an old friend of my family."
"Which family?"
"The one in Spain."
"Someone knows Don Carlos here in Mexico City?"
"One person for certain. An old man who knows all of my sins. I'm told he's half blind, but he could tell I'm a fake in the dark. The way Fortune is laughing at me, there may be another intimate or victim of Don Carlos on every street corner, waiting to expose me."
"Ah, Bastardo, this is what comes of thinking for yourself. Had you told me you were returning to reap revenge, I would not have let you come alone. I would still have my eye, and you would not be in this mess. What is your plan? To murder the old man? Gouge his eyes out before dinner?"
"I considered both. But I have neither the heart nor the nerve for either."
"Silencing the old man before he can tell the world of your sins would throw suspicion on you."
"I've thought of that, too. I'm also considering using yoyotli dust. If I can find it." I reminded him how we used the dream dust to disorient Isabella's maid.
"It's risky. And it fails to do one thing: validate you as Don Carlos."
"You think this old man will do that? He has not seen Don Carlos for seven or eight years, but I have seen Carlos, and I look nothing like him. His skin, hair, and eyes are all lighter than mine. This old man could smell me and know I'm not the son of his old friend."
"Soto is trying to find a way to justify dealing with you, even if it's behind the back of his compadres. So far he has heard stories about you that intrigue him. You are a thief and a scoundrel. That fits in nicely with his own plans. But he needs to know more about you. If he doesn't get enough information from the old man, he may keep inquiring. You could do worse than an old man who depends upon a monocle to see."