Eléna slipped the cell key into the door and slowly turned it. When I was unlatched, she handed it to me through the bars.
"Vaya con Dios," she whispered.
The grains of sand in the hourglass were quickly diminishing. We waited with intense anticipation for the last grain to fall. And nothing happened.
"Mateo has—" I started.
An explosion hit that shook the dungeon. And then another. Stone and mortar fell from the ceiling, and a black cloud blew through the corridors.
Eléna jerked open the cell door and handed me her robe. I gave her a kiss. Don Eduardo pulled me away from her.
"Hurry. We must use the surprise."
Dense smoke had already taken what little light the candles gave off in that gruesome stone passageway. I could barely see Don Eduardo as I followed behind him. All around me prisoners were coughing and screaming to be let out, fearful that a fire had somehow ignited the stone walls. To my right I heard the mad howl of Montezuma the Cannibal. He seemed to delight in the fact that the dungeon had turned midnight.
Muffled explosions came from other parts of the palace. Mateo was making sure the viceroy's guards were kept busy everywhere.
I crashed into someone, and my first instinct was that it was a guard.
"Help me! I can't see!" The man yelled, grabbing me with both his hands.
I recognized the voice. Fray Osorio. Sí, the man who had peeled my skin and ripped my flesh with hot pincers.
The Fates had finally dealt me a good hand.
"This way, Padre," I whispered.
I steered him to the cell of Montezuma and opened it with the passkey.
"Fray Antonio and Cristo the Bandit have arranged a special treat for you."
I shoved Osorio into the cell.
"Fresh meat!" I yelled to Montezuma.
I ran to find my father. Behind me was the sweet music of Montezuma's feral howls, and the fray's screams of horror and pain.
I stumbled out of the dungeon behind Don Eduardo. Others were already there, coughing and choking. Guards lay on the ground. The prisoner section had been inundated with smoke, but Mateo's bombs had blown wood, charcoal, and stone from the fireplace in the guard's room, wounding several of them.
I followed Don Eduardo's hurried steps to a waiting carriage. The driver was not in sight. He jerked open the carriage door and stopped.
Luis grinned at him from inside the carriage.
"I saw the carriage parked near the dungeon and figured you were paying this swine a visit. But I'm surprised you had the courage to help him escape. Guards!"
Don Eduardo grabbed him and pulled him from the carriage. As Luis came out, his dagger appeared in his hand. He drove it into Don Eduardo's stomach.
The older man let go of Luis and staggered back. Luis was still off balance from being pulled from the carriage. I hit him with my fist. He fell back against the carriage, and I slammed my elbow into his face. Luis fell to the ground.
My father was kneeling, clutching his stomach. Blood ran through his fingers.
"Run!" he gasped.
Guards had already started for us, and I could delay no longer. I climbed onto the driver's seat and grabbed the reins. "Andale! Andale!" I whipped the horses.
The carriage shot across the cobblestone courtyard with the two startled horses in the lead. They headed in a straight line for the main gate, which lay two hundred feet ahead. Behind me guards were shouting the alarm and muskets fired.
Ahead of me guards rushed to close the main gate. As it slammed shut, I turned the horses. More muskets sounded as I whipped the horses along the high wall separating the palace grounds from the street. A musket round found one of the horses and he went down, tipping the carriage and causing it to crash against the wall. The driver's box was as high as the wall, and I leaped from the driver's seat up atop the wall, then dropped into bushes on the streetside below.
"Compadre!"
From up the street, Mateo galloped two horses toward me.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN
We'll never make it over a causeway!" I shouted, as we charged through the streets.
Mateo shook his head, as if fleeing this island city was an inconsequential detail. Night was rapidly falling, but that would not get us past the causeway guards. The whole city—having heard the explosions and musket fire at the viceroy's palace—would be on the alert.
Mateo did not lead me to a causeway. Instead, I followed him to a familiar location: The lakeside dock where we had once fled the city aboard a boat filled with mint treasure.
A boat was waiting. As we neared, two mestizos in the boat pushed off and began paddling away from shore. I cursed their black hearts. We were stranded!
I followed Mateo's lead and climbed off my horse. He spooked the horses, sending them back toward the heart of the city.
The thunder of other horse hooves was coming toward us.
"The boat's leaving! We're trapped!"
"That was us on the boat," Mateo said calmly.
He steered me toward a donkey cart where Jaime the lépero was standing with a big grin. The cart was empty except for indio blankets.
"Under the blankets, quickly. The boy will lead us out of here."
"We will never get past the guards at the causeway. They're not that stupid."
"We're not going over the causeway." Mateo glared at Jaime.
The boy had his hand out.
"What do you want?"
"More dinero."
With the sound of the hooves of the soldado's horses in our ears, Mateo cursed the boy and threw him a coin. "Bandito!"
We climbed into the cart and covered ourselves as the boy guided the donkey away.
We went to the house of Don Silvestre's widowed daughter.
"She stays all the time now with her father, only coming here to bring me food and comfort," Mateo said. "I came back into the city and holed up until I made contact with Eléna and, through her, Don Eduardo."
For the next two days, Jaime came each afternoon for a few minutes with news of the day—and for an additional payment. I had the distinct feeling that he would have sold us to the highest bidder if in this case the highest bidder hadn't been us. As a street boy, I would have admired his thieving spirit. As a victim of his avarice, ¡ay de mí! We paid.
"I should cut your thieving little throat," Mateo growled at the boy.
The first news we had was that Cristo the Bandit and his accomplice had escaped from the city on an indio boat. Since there were hundreds of such boats plying the city each day, it was impossible to determine which boat we had left in and where we took to land.
With that news also came bad tidings. Don Eduardo had died of his wound; the death was attributed to me. It made me both sad and angry. Once again I had lost a father to a dagger. And again I was blamed for spilling the blood.
Reports about the hunt for Cristo became a daily fare. He was spotted fleeing in the direction of the four winds. He was already back up to his old tricks, robbing silver trains and ravishing women. Eh, if I had just committed half the deeds and loved half the women the rumors spoke about.
The other news was about Eléna. The tale being told in the marketplace was that the viceroy's niece had taken food to a sick guard and had been at the guard station when the bomb exploded. I had to give the Spanish bureaucracy some credit. They had taught Don Diego well. After all my years on the streets, lying about everything, including my very existence, I could not have come up with a more clever lie.
The other news about her was less heartening. Her betrothal to Luis was announced, and the marriage was being rushed so that they could journey to Spain on the next treasure fleet. Luis, whose own mother had returned to Spain to give him birth, thus ensuring that he was a Spain-born gachupin rather than a colony-born criollo, was to present himself at the Royal Court in Madrid for an appointment of some substance.