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ZZZ
The fire cast a warm glow across the room. Diego sank further into his chair, relaxing tight muscles. His father sat quietly beside him. Alejandro had barely spoken during dinner, and he now studied the flickering flames as if he wanted to remember every one.
“Are you all right, Father?”
Alejandro blinked and turned to look at Diego. “Yes, yes. I’m fine, Diego.”
Diego nodded, not believing him, but unsure what question needed to be asked. Today had been a good day. The alcalde had again been defeated, and a good man escaped injustice.
The wood crackled in the fire, and Alejandro flinched. He rubbed his eyes and then sighed. “Who was Crispus Attucks, Diego?”
He frowned, surprised by the question. The alcalde’s latest victim had asked Diego that question from his jail cell. Fortunately, Diego had been able to answer him. “He was the only free black man to die in the Boston Massacre of 1770, Father. Although some say he was actually an escaped slave.”
“The Boston Massacre?”
“It was the start of the Americanos’ revolution, Father.” Diego closed his eyes, trying to remember everything he had learned about the Massacre. “A number of British soldiers—the British colonist called them ‘red coats’—fired on a crowd. Crispus Attucks and two others died instantly. I think a boy died that night, and perhaps another man soon after. The government put the soldiers on trial, and John Adams, one of the leading revolutionaries, was their attorney.”
He opened his eyes and saw that his father was frowning at him. “I read a great deal, Father.”
“About the British colonists’ revolt against their King?”
Alejandro didn’t seem angry. Diego studied his clasped hands. “I read about many different subjects, Father.”
The crackle of the fire was the only sound in the room for several minutes. “Do you think—" Alejandro rubbed his hand over his eyes, causing Diego to realize how exhausted his father was. “Are you—"
“Father, I am a loyal citizen of Spain.” If one doesn’t count the treason charges.
His father sighed. “I know you aren’t out leading rebellions, Diego.”
He managed not to flinch. No, Diego wasn’t leading rebellions, but he was breaking the law. He was a notorious criminal, charged with treason against the Crown. An accusation he personally rejected, but he wondered how many of his father’s loyal friends would feel the same if they knew.
“No, Father, I just read about them.”
Alejandro remained seated in his chair, staring at the flames. Diego sat waiting for him to yell, for his face to flush with anger, but his father only sighed. Diego admitted to himself that he felt a little let down by the reaction. He remembered hiding book after book as a teenager. Camila, their housekeeper, had understood and took his book orders into his room instead of leaving them in the library to be sorted. The young Diego would wait until Alejandro had retired for the night to even unwrap his newest tome.
“You’re not upset?”
Alejandro’s lips curled slightly. “Upset? I would have been once, wouldn’t I?”
Diego shifted in his chair, turning slightly so he could see his father better. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” Alejandro stood and took the few steps needed to stand next to the fire. He leaned his right hand against the mantel and shook his head. “I love my country. I am a proud Spaniard, Diego.”
Diego stood and approached his father, carefully, as if not to spook him. “I know that, Father. While I was in Spain, I met the woman who served as my wet nurse. She informed me that she caught you several times standing over me at night telling me Spanish history.”
Diego smiled as he remembered sitting by Alejandro as his father read through history books and used maps to pinpoint where important battles had taken place. He remembered hearing his father sing songs with visiting retired soldiers that celebrated glorious Spain. Diego remembered that late in the evening that the men would sing other songs they learned in the army—songs that had not been meant for an eavesdropping Diego’s ears! As a young boy, he’d stand in front of this fireplace and recite the lineage of the King to a smiling Alejandro.
Lost in old memories, he almost missed his father’s whispered, “Sometimes I’m ashamed.”
Diego’s head snapped back. “Of Spain?”
Alejandro nodded without looking at his son. He struggled to swallow and then he whispered, “Yes, of Spain.”
Diego opened his mouth to speak and then realized he had absolutely nothing to say. He stared at his father’s bent neck and his slumped shoulders, and he ached to offer comfort.
Reaching for the poker, he struggled to think. Old words echoed in his ears as he stroked the fire: “A de la Vega loves his country, Diego!”
“After they dragged Señora Escalante—" He stopped. Paused. Took a deep breath. “After the soldiers murdered her,” he spit out. “I was angry.”
For the first time that night, Diego knew his father was watching him, but he couldn’t meet his eyes. He was confessing to old crimes, and even if Alejandro could now understand his reasons, could maybe even accept his motivations, old habits were hard to break.
“I was, too, Diego. Heart sick,” Alejandro admitted, his voice stronger than it had been minutes before.
“Do you remember the Martínez from Mexico City?”
Alejandro was silent for a moment, obviously surprised by the change in subject. “Yes, I think so. I remember you playing with their son. Emilio?”
“He admitted to me that his parents were open to the idea of revolution. I was horrified but fascinated, too. He whispered about people and events that weren’t in my history books. There was knowledge out there that I couldn’t access.” Diego closed his eyes and remembered being a teenage boy sitting up late at night, sweating in the cold breeze as he wrote a letter that would infuriate his father if he read it. And possibly get Diego killed if it had been intercepted by soldiers.
“You always wanted to know more. You never asked for more toys or food. You never demanded our best horse flesh. Just books.” Diego felt his shoulders relax with his father’s affectionate tone.
“I asked for books from Emilio, too. After I watched them lower a good woman’s casket into the ground, after learning her crime was compassion—"
He clenched his eyes tighter, struggling to hold onto old tears. “I had to know: Was there a better way?”
Diego heard his father shift. He turned to find Alejandro standing straight in front of him, his shoulders pulled back, as if waiting for a firing squad. “Is there a better way?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But the ideas of the revolutionaries—Father, you raised me on those ideas.”
Alejandro’s eyebrows snapped up. “I raised you to be loyal to the King of Spain!”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You did. However, you also raised me to believe that all men are created equal.” He’d first read those words late at night. Under the glow of one small candle, he’d translated the Americanos’ words into Spanish and had been awed at that idea. They had felt right.
Alejandro opened his mouth and then closed it with an audible click.
Diego smiled. “Everyone is worthy of respect. I remember you telling me that often. More importantly, I remember you showing me that even more.”
With a loud sigh, his father turned and walked into the shadows of the room. “You can love your King and believe that everyone deserves respect, Diego.” The snap was back in Alejandro’s voice.
Diego told himself that he should leave well enough alone. He should remember his place, his role. But it was as if a cork had been popped from a bottle of that sparkling wine they liked to serve at Court. The feelings, the ideas, that had fermented in him for years could no longer be held within.
He took a step after his father. “Can you?”
Alejandro turned to face him. The shadows hid his face, but the fire reflected in his eyes. “Yes, you can.”
“It’s the King’s men who exploit our people, Father.”
“It is the alcalde—"
“Who rules with the backing of the territorial governor who rules with the backing of the King’s closest advisors.” Diego struggled to keep control of his voice. Anger sang in his blood, but he couldn’t let his father see that fury. Not all of it. It would lead to too many questions.
Alejandro crossed his arms and seemed to disappear further into the shadows without moving. “Tell me, Diego. Are you ashamed of my service to the King?”
His breath excelled from his body as if Diego had been punched in the stomach. “No! I am proud of your military service. How can you doubt that?”
Alejandro rubbed his face. “I’m sorry. I’m taking my doubts out on you.”
“Doubts?”
“I see what the soldiers do, Diego. I see the way the people look at them with fear and revulsion. I see, and I wonder. Did the people look at me the same way? Did I not notice?” Diego ached; his father always spoke of his service with pride. Always. Until tonight.
“I know they didn’t.”
His father sighed again. “How do you know? You were barely born when I resigned my commission.”
He held out his hand and took two steps to get closer to his father. He could now see the outline of his face in the shadows. “Because I know you. You would never do anything you believed to be wrong.”
“A soldier follows orders, Diego. I did many things I never wanted to do.”
Diego knew the life of a soldier was not an easy one. As much as he enjoyed embarrassing the lancers of Los Angeles, he tried to lift their burdens when he could. When Ramone demanded soldiers replace uniforms, Zorro left money under their pillows. The soldiers hadn’t been paid in months, and most of them took excellent care of their uniforms. Most of those uniforms only had to be replaced after losing encounters with Zorro.
It was a secret between Zorro and the lancers. The alcalde would explode if he knew—as well as confiscating the money while still insisting on new uniforms. So the lancers remained quiet, never telling anyone outside of their garrison. Mendoza tried to stutter his appreciation once, but Zorro pretended not to understand. The sergeant’s smile said Mendoza understood, and it had never been brought up again by any of the lancers.
As Diego, he tried to be a friend to the garrison. The bullies who had been assigned to Los Angeles quickly left after Zorro arrived, leaving behind mostly good men. Some were lazy. Some were stupid (and took great pride in it). But Diego could forgive those faults somewhat, and most were simply young men who had nowhere else to go. So, he bought the occasional meal and drink. He listened when a lancer needed a discreet ear to complain about conditions or to mourn a lost love. The soldiers were slowly starting to trust him.
Yes, it helped him to gather data as Zorro, but that wasn’t the only reason Diego did it. He had fond memories of former soldiers who served with his father spending time at the hacienda when he was a child. Current soldiers had stopped in back then, too. Men whose father, brother, uncle had served with Alejandro. Men who had only heard of him and wanted to meet him had visited. The lancers were Zorro’s enemy, but Diego struggled to be their friend.
“Father, you would never do anything you didn’t believe was right.”
The fire reflected the remembered horrors in Alejandro’s eyes. “I saw so many horrible things while I served my King, Diego. Men can die in such agony.”
Diego heard the glories of battles won when he was a child, but he was an adult now. He understood why some of those late-night conversations between old soldiers had been so quiet, and why some men had sobbed in the de la Vega library. He would never ask for the specifics of his Father’s battles, and he knew Alejandro would never tell him.
He carefully chose his words. “In a time of peace, would you shoot a child?”
“No,” Alejandro said. Instead of its usual flame, Alejandro’s voice crackled with a hint of ice.
“Would you fire over the head of peasants to terrify them into paying a tax they simply have no money to pay?”
Alejandro sighed. “I know what you are saying—"
“You would refuse, Father, even if it meant your own life,” Diego said with certainty.
His father stepped out of the shadows, and Diego flinched at the look on his face. “So, please, tell me, Diego. What should do I do?”
Diego frowned. “Do?”
“I am a proud Spaniard. I have tried to follow the rules. I have protested, written petitions, and failed to protect our friends from the government. A government that now exploits instead of protects. So, what am I supposed to do, Diego?”
Diego looked away, struggling to think. His father had protested, loudly, at every injustice, but no one in power had listened. What was he supposed to do?
Sighing, Alejandro walked back to the mantle and rested his arms against it. “Zorro has done more good for Los Angeles than I have.”
“I don’t think so,” Diego snapped. Alejandro de la Vega was the backbone of this community and had been all of Diego’s life.
“Against the alcalde he has,” Alejandro said, looking over his shoulder. “I think I would have arrested him.”
Diego found his shoes fascinating. “Arrested Zorro?”
“Yes, I would arrest Zorro. The soldier I was would have considered it his duty, his honor, to arrest a traitor like Zorro,” Alejandro admitted.
Thankful that Alejandro wasn’t looking at him, Diego struggled to hide his reaction to that statement. His father considered him a traitor.
“I would’ve been wrong.”
Diego looked up from the floor. “Wrong? So, you don’t think Zorro is a traitor?”
Alejandro turned and shook his head. “No, Diego, he is a traitor by law. But he’s right. He fights for justice. If we can’t get justice from the Crown of Spain, then—"
Diego lost control of his lower jaw. His father smiled, and then he nodded before sitting back down in his chair. “I would like to borrow some of those books, Diego.”
With his tongue feeling heavy and awkward, Diego said, “You want to borrow some of my books. About revolution.”
“It’s time I become more proactive, Diego,” Alejandro said with a small, sad smile. “I need to see if I can find some ideas in those books of yours.”
With a heavy heart, Diego walked in front of the fire and looked down on his father. He had stood in front of this fire many times reciting the lineage of the King. Now his father was speaking about revolt against that same King.
“In the morning.”
Alejandro sank down into his chair. “Yes, in the morning. It’s too late tonight to start putting new ideas into this old brain.”
Diego nodded and started to return to his chair. Then, struck by a thought, he moved to stand in front of his father. Alejandro opened his mouth to obviously ask Diego what he was doing. “Our King is Ferdinand VII. He ascended to the throne in 1808.”
Alejandro smiled his appreciation. Diego returned it and continued to tell the glories of the Spanish Crown. For tonight, both de la Vegas could be proud Spaniards.
Tomorrow was another day.
ZZZ
Thank you for reading!