Chapter 1

Sergeant Jaime Mendoza was a man who loved tranquillity. Strange idea in this case, you say, to join the army. But beyond the desire to serve his king and to ensure the safety of his fellow citizens, all things being a priori good enough reasons to opt for this career, Jaime Mendoza had somehow found in the army the means to get to the rather uncomplicated life he was aspiring to: the army was, in a sense, a reassuring framework whose organisation spared him complications by often simplifying the soldier's life. Indeed, this barrack life was essentially made of instructions to follow and orders to obey without too much further thinking.

Yes, for a soldier under the command of alcaldes such as Ignacio de Soto – or Luis Ramone before him – it was better not to think too hard, on pain of finding themselves facing some ugly dilemmas for a man whose heart was as kindly and benevolent as was Jaime Mendoza's.

Yes, the thorn in our good sergeant's flesh was the accession to power, several years ago, of the two men having successively been appointed to this post for the pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula. Before that, he had always felt that in fulfilling his duty he was defending and serving the people – this very people he belonged to. Now... Now making his duty agree with his conscience had become more complicated. As was tuning the obedience of the good soldier and the precepts of the good Christian, the decency of the human being he wanted to be and remain. Everything had become more complicated in the recent years.

And Jaime Mendoza did not like complications.

That's where his thoughts had wandered while he was idly patrolling the countryside – or rather the desert – surrounding the pueblo with a troop of lancers under his command, in the highly unlikely event that a bandit would not have heard them approach and would have let himself be caught in the act, when he was interrupted in his bitter thoughts by a cry.

Or more precisely cries. But not screams, no. Rather plaintive whimpers.

A woman's whimpers.

Halfway between groans and moans of pain.

Mendoza and several of his soldiers heard and turned their heads all around to try and determine where these sounds came from.

Then suddenly the cries became more pleading, more imploring, more piercing; more imperative too:

"NO! No, don't do that!"

This time the soldiers all turned the head in the same direction.

"NO, stop! You mustn't... NO, let go of that!" the voice shouted again.

Over there, on their left, they spotted a horse that seemed slightly familiar to Mendoza without him being able to immediately remember who owned it. A little further another saddled horse trotted with a slight limp, shaking his head from time to time, circling around a small heap of rocks and bushes, a bit aside from the road.

Then the voice went on with greater intensity:

"What are you doing? NO, don't touch me, get back! Let go of me! Let me…"

Mendoza motioned to his patrol to move towards the source of these pleas that seemed to precisely come from behind the rocks, and he put his horse into a canter.

"NO! No, please don't do that! I beg you! Unhand me! Don't touch me! Don't touch me! N– AAAAAAAAAH!"

The woman's last scream tore the relative quietude of the desert over many hundred feet around, making several broods of birds fly off and the two horses rear while Mendoza and his men finally arrived on site bypassing rocks and shrubs, weapons drawn to help the unfortunate victim.

The sight displayed then and there before his eyes first left the sergeant voiceless for one or two seconds, then he flew off the handle to the point that he pointed his sword straight ahead, shaking with anger.

On the ground and just before his horse, a woman was lying flat on her back, now unconscious, with a fresh reddening bruise on her temple, her cheek scratched and slightly bleeding. A man was half lain down over her, his back to Mendoza, and with his bended left arm he was pinning her shoulders to the ground while his right hand was holding her left arm down. Roughly a cubit away from there lay a knife that the man had probably dropped in order to get a better hold on his victim. Lowering his eyes a bit, the sergeant saw that the woman's skirts and petticoats were rolled up to the top of the right knee, and even up to mid-thigh. A sizable trickle of blood was running down the inner side of her knee.

Sickened by so much cowardice and barbarism, Mendoza pointed the tip of his sabre to the man's back and prodded his spine while barking his orders at him:

"Unhand her at once! Stand up slowly, no sudden move or I swear I skewer you like a beef's rump steak!"

But feeling the tip of the sabre between his shoulder blades made the other man turn his head to look behind, and as Mendoza recognised him the sergeant realised that all his refined eloquence toward the attacker was totally lost on him; at the same time he received his second shock within a few seconds. But it was even more astounding, confusing, appalling and bewildering than the first one. Even more unsettling, in a word.

The weapon still pointed at the young man, Mendoza opened and closed his mouth several times like a fish out of water, in utter disbelief, but as no sound came out, he remained as silent as his vis-à-vis.

The de la Vegas' deaf-mute?

Then slowly the reality of the scene the sergeant was witnessing seemed to sink in and he finally recognised the familiar horse as the mount the young man usually used; then slowly, almost painfully, in sheer disbelief and still in shock, Mendoza managed to utter a single word:

"F-F-... Felipe?!"

That was quite a complication. And Jaime Mendoza didn't like complications.