"This needs to end now, Ignacio!" Diego was proclaiming as the people were crowding on the tavern's terrace. "It is time for you to leave this pueblo."
"Really? I hope you're not challenging me, Don Diego!" De Soto uttered half-amused.
"Not yet, Alcalde. For now, I am simply suggesting you to do so peacefully. It would, at least, allow you to escape with your life and whatever is left of your pride still intact." He replied in monotone.
"I'm no quitter, De la Vega. Nor am I willing to let myself intimidated by half-men like you!"
"This time you should. But fine... I guess you have never really known when to quit, have you?" Diego concluded. "Now you give me no choice but to challenge you to a duel." He continued calmly.
"Do you really want to make the new Dona De la Vega a widow so soon? Really, Diego! I should have known you prefer death rather than marriage. Is the thought of being with her so unbearable, Senor?" De Soto joked, amused at the idea of fighting the famously-clumsy caballero.
"On the contrary. I have wanted to marry her ever since I came home from Spain, over nine years ago. All I am doing is offering you a fair deal. Either leave peacefully or fight me. You win, you get to take my life. If I win, you forfeit yours. Whatever you decide, one of us will no longer be here by nightfall."
"You do have a death wish!" Ignacio remarked mockingly.
"Diego! What are you doing?" Victoria asked as she came to stand in front of the crowd on the tavern's porch. "You cannot fight him! Please! I… I forgive you for not telling me he wasn't Zorro, but I'll never forgive you if you'll make me a widow minutes after our wedding!"
"Listen to your wife Don Diego!" De Soto suggested. "She's more understanding than most women would be in her position and I, for one, don't need to take your life to already feel like a winner."
"Really? And what do you think you have won? Have you even stopped to consider you might have chosen Tadeo to help you for the same reason he had been chosen to be my understudy while in university? Once an understudy…"
"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Diego? Please!" De Soto chuckled, a wide grin on his face.
"Why are you afraid to fight me, then?"
"Afraid?" De Soto replied, enraged by the provocation. "Say your goodbyes, Senor! I'd rather Zorro made your taverness a widow, but you seem determined to give me no choice."
"Diego!" Victoria's hands reached for arm as Don Alejandro and Felipe followed her. "I beg you! It's not worth your life! Don't go through with this!"
Felipe signaled to Diego, the meaning of his gestures escaping everyone except his father.
"I am! This needs to end today." He replied to his son, then turned towards his new wife, lowering the volume of his voice. "Victoria, please, trust me! I have no intention of leaving you. Certainly not now when you can finally wear the engagement ring I gave you, in public." He told her with a wink, then made a gesture with his head indicating his father and Felipe that they should take her to a safe place among the gathered crowd. She followed them, glancing back at her new husband with a disconcerted look on her face wondering if he actually said what she believed he had said.
"Don Dalmiro," Diego addressed an older caballero known to have once won some regional fencing competitions, after his family became part of the crowd again "may I borrow your sword? I promise to return it to you in the same condition."
The older don glanced worriedly towards Don Alejandro, who nodded, then back at Diego, and took out his sword, carefully handing it to him.
"I hope you know how to use one, son!" he uttered as the weapon exchanged hands.
Diego took it and smiled weighing it in his hands. It was not Toledo steel, but he was certain it would do the job even better, since he was planning to break his no-killing rule for the first time in his life.
"I am ready, Ignacio!" He informed the Alcalde.
"I'll make your death quick, Senor. Just like your brother's." De Soto assured him as he produced his sword and took position before Diego.
The two adversaries saluted, then started circling each other, Ignacio suddenly worried at seeing a certain self-confidence he had never previously noted in the De la Vega heir. When he was convinced Diego's eyesight might be affected by the position of the sun, he suddenly attacked, but the caballero avoided his thrust, gracefully turning around, a familiar movement which sent him charging into the pueblo's public fountain.
De Soto stopped just before clumsily falling into the water and turned back towards him, preparing his next attack. This time, his thrust was met by Diego's borrowed sword. So was his next and, looking into the caballero's stone-cold eyes, the Alcalde's smile started to fade as the man before him didn't even move from his place since the exchange started. A combined attack perfectly executed was easily parried, as was the one after that.
"I admit you might be a bit better than I had thought." De Soto uttered as he took a step back, pausing for a short while. His opponent had not even broken a sweat and hadn't initiated any attack thus far.
As Ignacio lunged again, to everyone's astonishment, Diego disarmed him with a quick flip of his wrist. Deftly catching the Alcalde's sword in his left hand by its hilt, he sent it straight into one of the tavern's pillars, without even looking at what he was doing, all his attention focused on Ignacio. The weapon planted itself just inches above Sepulveda's head.
Diego's sword directed at his chest, De Soto took an awkward step back, stumbled, and fell on the ground.
"And I admit you were never a real challenge for me, Alcalde!" The caballero replied, still in monotone, as all noise in the plaza was silenced, people frozen in expectation. "I hope you made your peace with God, Ignacio." He continued, preparing to thrust the sword through his adversary's chest.
Diego felt Felipe's hands holding his right one just before he made his move, though. His son shook his head and made all his effort to utter, in a voice that was merely above a whisper "You are better than him!" a fact that surprised Diego almost as much as Victoria's profession of love for him, in spite of her being convinced that she was thus giving up on Zorro.
"Yes! Please, Diego! I… I saved your life!" De Soto uttered with a puzzled glance at Felipe, then looked at his intended killer in terror at realizing his life hung by a thread.
"How many times have I saved yours? Four? Five times? More? That never stopped you from trying to take mine." Diego replied, and the Alcalde's terror grew at his words.
Suddenly, the Alcalde realized he was no longer seeing his former schoolmate, nor a fearful weakling, but rather a coldly furious, unmasked Zorro who towered above him. He had seen the outlaw in a range of emotions from playful to stern to angry, but this cold fury sent chills down his spine. He could see the control his adversary was exerting over his emotions as his whole body emanated pure rage.
"You? You are Zorro!" He suddenly yelled what most people around them had already concluded. "That's an admission! Mendoza!" Ignacio called. "Lancers! Why are you not helping me? He's Zorro! Arrest him! Shoot him!" He asked, doing his best not to seem too intimidated by the sword at his neck or the man holding it. Diego didn't even flinch.
"You just offered him a full pardon, Alcalde!" Mendoza informed him in a squirming voice. "And he won the duel… so it is legal for him to take your life if he decides to…"
"I'd say your men were always more honorable than you've ever been." Diego pointed out. "What was your plan, Ignacio?"
"My plan?"
"Yes. Your plan. For Victoria. For me. For Los Angeles."
"I…" De Soto hesitated.
"Tell me the truth and I might chose to let you live." Diego urged him.
"Fine…" De Soto agreed despite hesitating for a full minute. "I hoped she'd marry Tadeo and be off my hands. He'd have gotten six thousand pesos to sell me the tavern and would have left with her for Spain on today's ship from San Pedro. Zorro… you… would have been heartbroken, thus easier to catch... I had every intention of hanging you as soon as I found a good excuse to do so." He confessed. "Without you, no one would oppose my rule."
"So you'd have had her raped and sequestrated by a violent man who only wanted the money you offered him. Did you know he almost killed his fiancée? That he enjoyed hurting women? That two of his lovers died in strange accidents he is still suspected to have caused? Have you taken the time to consider what would have happened to Victoria? Of course you didn't. All you cared about was to catch me. No... Not just to catch me. To subject these good people to more of your incompetent rule and oppression. Do you even understand the consequences of your own actions, Ignacio?" Diego asked as the gathered crowd was murmuring angrily, causing De Soto to fear that, even if his old schoolmate would spare his life, the Los Angelinos might decide to tear him to pieces either way.
"I…"
"Did you have even the slightest impression that I wouldn't have killed you on the spot, consequences be damned, if that plan would have succeeded? If Victoria would have married Tadeo, believing he was me? Or that I wouldn't follow her to the ends of the earth, if I had to? I always did my best to avoid taking a man's life, but I would not hesitate to kill for her, Ignacio." Diego threatened and there was little doubt in anyone's mind as to the seriousness of his threat. "You should thank her!" He continued, pointing towards his wife. "Her decision not to marry that thug saved your life. And so has my son just now."
"Yes…" De Soto agreed with a nod.
"I didn't hear you! I said you should thank them!"
"Yes! Yes! Thank you, Dona Victoria. Thank you, Fel… Don Felipe!" De Soto uttered, his voice shaking.
"Now… I believe your ship leaves from San Pedro in about three hours, which gives you precisely ten minutes to sign your resignation, name my father in your place – the people of Los Angeles do deserve at least a good temporary Alcalde, after having had to deal with the likes of you for so long – pack, and be on your way. I will accompany you to your office to make sure you don't leave with the people's taxes, or the reward money, which will finally be used to help this pueblo. And… one more thing… I wouldn't want you to forget me too easily!" Diego decided as he carved a Z in Ignacio's vest. "Sergeant, why don't you help us speed this along by packing his essentials?" The caballero ordered, and guided Ignacio towards his office, Mendoza obediently following them.
Nobody seemed to have moved in the plaza, or utter a word the ten or fifteen minutes they were inside the green-doored building.
"I will need some volunteers to make sure he's onboard the ship when it leaves!" Diego asked at exiting the Alcalde's office, Ignacio still at the wrong end of his sword. Six men - two dons, a farmer and three vaqueros - offered to do the job. "Have a safe trip back to Spain, Ignacio!" He wished his former colleague. "And remember that, should our paths cross again…"
"They won't!" De Soto replied as he mounted his steed. He truly had no intention to ever return, and part of him was even relieved that his plan had failed, especially considering what would have happened to the taverness had it succeeded. The man who was Zorro had been right: he never did fully consider the consequences of his actions. "I… I'm sorry, Don Diego! I beg your forgiveness, Senori… Senora!" He said instead of goodbye, as his horse started to canter in the midst of the group of volunteers.
"You can speak?" Don Alejandro asked his grandson while most of the people were either watching De Soto depart or looking at the young caballero who had spent almost a decade defending them.
"Just a little." He whispered back. "But I have been hearing well since I was twelve." He proceeded to confess as the old don embraced him enthusiastically.
"You've been helping him, haven't you?" He asked, and Felipe nodded. "Well, then… I guess you have a lot of stories to tell me as I intend to give you plenty of opportunity to practice speaking." Don Alejandro decided, beaming with pride at glancing between his son and his grandson.
Diego watched De Soto and his escort leave with the same frozen expression he wore for the last thirty minutes or so, then turned towards Don Dalmiro. "Thank you for allowing me to borrow your sword." He said as he returned the saber to its owner.
"It was my honor, Don Diego!" The man replied with undisguised admiration, as Victoria hurried towards her husband.
She stopped a few steps in front of him, just staring at the man she thought she knew as if she was seeing him for the very first time. In fact, they both remained looking at each other until the tall caballero suddenly cupped her left cheek and leaned to give her the most passionate kiss the Los Angelinos had ever witnessed, right there, in the middle of the plaza.
"I think I'd better take you home, Victoria!" Diego suggested when they parted for air, indecently-long minutes later.
"Yes. I believe you should!" She agreed with a teasing smile as she stopped noticing anyone and anything around her.
The people in the plaza, the ride to the hacienda, the looks on the De la Vega servants' faces passing by as Diego carried her to his room, their clothes, all blended in her mind as only her husband kept existing, his arms enveloping her, his breath warming her body, his naked chest protecting her, his eyes feeding her soul with promises of eternal love, his lips whispering only her name: Victoria.
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AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and do review if you did!