Lesson 2: Appearances can be deceiving

The evening of the day he officially met his grandfather, uncles, and aunt, Diego left a message for Mateo and Alma with their housekeeper, thanking them for having allowed him to stay in their house, and moved in with his family.

The house Diego was born in was a three-story mansion with dependencies for the servants, situated in one of Madrid's oldest neighborhoods, and had been in the family for centuries. Don Emmanuel was more than happy to show his grandson around, and their other family members followed as he did so. At reaching his parents' former quarters in the house, the same in which he had been born, the Count informed Diego that it would be his room there and that he expected his grandson to spend his weekends with them, as well as his holidays.

Diego saw no other way but to agree.

In the weeks which followed and until the time came for the young caballero to move to the University's dorms, the Count barely let Diego out of his sight, taking him to every social event he was invited to and introduce him to all his friends, to the large country estate he had bought near Alcala de Henares, and even to the Royal Palace to introduce him to the King and his family.

A little over a week before the classes started, Diego finally met Sir Kendall, when he came one day by the De Laras' residence to visit with the Count and, precisely, to ask about his pupil-to-be. Introductions were not necessary as all it took was one glance at Diego for the English knight to know exactly who he was.

"I'm afraid you might be rather disappointed with my current level of fencing." The young don confessed over lunch as his future professor finished recounting how he, Alejandro, and Alfonso had first met.

"I have learned that potential is what truly matters in a student, Diego" The Englishman replied. "So don't worry! If you are half as talented as your father and uncle, I shall make a swordsman out of you, nonetheless."

"I'll keep you to that promise, Edmund!" The old nobleman stated, smiling at his grandson.

"It might take quite some time, though," Diego warned.

"Trust me, young man! You'll be a decent swordsman by the time I finish teaching you!" Sir Kendall insisted. "And, since I am already back in Madrid, with no students for a week, we might as well start training tomorrow."

As decided, the tall caballero arrived at Sir Edmund's house the following morning. He was given a rapier, then the Englishman assessed his skills.

"Alejandro was a wonderful swordsman in his time, but he's certainly a bad teacher!" Sir Kendall concluded somewhat disappointed, making a mental note to chide his old friend in his next letter, and wondered if Diego would, indeed, as he had assured him the previous day, ever become a good swordsman. "We'll need to start with the basics."

ZZZ

Diego moved to the campus a day before the official opening of the academic year and met the man who was to become his best friend during his stay there just minutes after his arrival.

Emmanuel Dos Santos was the orphaned son of a former general, who had been born and raised in Malaga. He had inherited his father's title of Viscount, yet rarely used it when introducing himself and few even knew he had it. He was brown-haired and brown-eyed, handsome and almost as tall as the Californian. Emmanuel was also good-hearted, cheerful, and just as idealistic as the young man who happened to be assigned the room next to his.

That first day, shortly after they met since the other students were still to arrive, they took a walk around the premises of the university, getting to know each other.

"What electives are you taking?" Emmanuel asked Diego at one point, as they were admiring the architecture of the university's main building.

"Applied chemistry, Jurisprudence and Architecture." He replied.

"You are only expected to choose one elective." His colleague replied with some superiority Diego disliked.

"I know, but, since I'm here, I thought I might as well make the most of it." He said. "How about you?"

"Applied chemistry, Jurisprudence, and Anatomy," Emmanuel told him with a sly smile. "I also thought I should make the most of being here." He then clarified, all false superiority completely gone from his face.

"Well… I think we'll see a lot of each other." Diego informed him, already certain to have found a kindred spirit in the other young man.

Their other best friends they met during the first days of classes.

They were a rather strange bunch, all with different interests, yet all with a passion for learning, idealistic and certain that a bright future awaited each of them.

Armando Martinez was the 21-year-old, black-haired son of a rich lawyer, who seemed to be a bit of a womanizer and loved to wear his hair a bit longer than other men of the time. It took his friends but a few weeks to realize that behind his forwardness there was a lot of insecurity and, although he had a certain ease when it came to seducing señoritas, his own moral code never allowed him to take things too far or to risk bringing dishonor to a woman as long as he hadn't decided to marry her.

Javier Montero Esquiver was 20 years old, brown-haired, and the second son of a viscount. He had just recently returned to Spain after several years spent in North Africa, and his big beard and mustache made him look some five years older than he was. While, at first sight, he seemed calm, mature, and rather boring to some, in reality, Javier was actually impulsive and somewhat of a prankster, his ideas many times succeeding to get him and his friends in trouble, yet no one ever regretted putting them into practice for, at least they ended up with a good story.

Finally, Ricardo de Los Rios was an idealistic young man, 18 years of age, son of a prosperous businessman, who dreamt of becoming a writer and had already published several short stories in a Spanish monthly literary paper. He was also a pacifist, just like Diego but, unlike him, he refused to ever touch a weapon, be it a sword or a gun.

Besides them, Diego easily befriended, although at a more superficial level, most of his fellow students, mainly those who, like him, were also freshmen, but also several of the older ones. In truth, he found so many people he could share his ideas with and learn from that Diego soon half-regretted his promise to his grandfather to spend the weekends at his house. That was because every Monday his friends had fun stories to tell him about what they had been up to during his absence, and it was hard for him not to think that he would have liked to be there, as well if, for no other reason, at least to keep them from getting into trouble as they seemed prone to do.

The university itself he also found fascinating. Its aulas* and the artwork decorating them and the hallways, the centuries-old traditions, and the huge library filled with books he had not yet had the opportunity to read, it all seemed to him like a different world and he felt more than privileged to be there.

After the classes started, the young students were also offered the opportunity to attend several extracurricular activities the leadership of the university believed to be of value to its graduates, such as fencing, equitation, art, and music classes.

As Diego was already a very good horse rider and saw no point in taking classes in something he was proficient in, and he had already started training with Sir Edmund, as did Emmanuel after Diego made the introductions, neither one of them opted for the classes which demanded physical skills. Instead, Emmanuel decided to study the guitar, certain it might come in handy when serenading beautiful señoritas, and Diego started taking piano and sculpture lessons.

That, however, did not impede the two friends from spending time each afternoon watching their colleagues practice with the University's fencing master, in the internal courtyard, and discuss their techniques as they did so.

"You will never become a swordsman just by watching others fight, De la Vega!" One of their older colleagues uttered one day as he heard them discuss which of the two men practicing at the time had more chances to win the fight.

"But Diego has no plan of becoming a swordsman, Ignacio, seeing how he can hardly tell one end of the sword from the other. I mean… in his case, it's a miracle he hasn't committed accidental suicide the first time he ever picked up a sword." Emmanuel mocked his best friend before Diego had the chance to reply.

Since they were both studying with the same master, he had had the opportunity to see Diego's skills with the sword, and he was also certain that his friend was one of the most talented swordsmen he had ever seen. That, however, never stopped Emmanuel from mocking him.

"I resent that!" The Californian muttered with a smile as their colleague continued on his way towards the courtyard, a disparaging grin on his face, and demanded some attention to teach the others how 'it is done', before proceeding to give a lesson in swordsmanship to the winner of the previous fight.

"He's better than I thought!" Emmanuel uttered and Diego nodded his agreement. "But, after a few months training with Sir Kendall, I'm sure we'll be able to best him. Don't you think?"

"I think it would take more than a few months, at least in my case." He replied slightly amused by his friend's optimism. "Sir Kendall is a magnificent professor, but he's no miracle worker. Furthermore, you are forgetting, my friend, that Ignacio graduated from the Military Academy before enrolling at the university and spent some six or seven years before that as a soldier. He is far ahead of us when it comes to training with the sword."

Emmanuel shook his head. "That might be so. But he makes a lot of mistakes. The only reason why he even wins is because his adversaries are worse than him and he is certain of himself. All one has to do to beat him is convince him he's the worse fighter. Psychology, my friend! It always works!"

ZZZ

Gilberto showed great promise since his first days at the Academy. He was already a good swordsman, thanks to the lessons his 'mother' had paid for him to receive in Madrid since he was 16. Furthermore, he was intelligent and quite well-educated since, for as long as he remembered he had been in competition with every one of his peers, at least in his head. He, thus, accepted to be second to none and, when someone did prove better, he did everything in his power to sabotage his competitor.

Just like Diego, his twin brother also had a hand for painting, also inherited from his real mother, which, under different circumstances, might have led him to become a very good painter, even better than his brother. As things stood, though, since Ynez had never encouraged him towards a career in art, set as she was to use him to get her vengeance, his talent found different employment after, aged 18, a friend of his introduced him to his uncle, who was a calligrapher, usually called upon to assist in various civil trials where documents needed to be studied for authenticity.

When Gilberto declared himself interested in his work, the man was happy to take him as his apprentice for a couple of months during the summer before he was due to leave for the Academy. At their end, the younger man was able not only to tell the difference between original and fake documents but also to make rather convincing forgeries.

Thus, as he started his studies, Gilberto also started using his skills against those of his peers he disliked, taking it as practice for when he'd meet his brother.

At first, they were mere pranks, even if cruel ones. Informing a colleague that a professor wanted to see him, then have him wait there for hours at the time; leaving notes written in the handwriting of another colleague offering to sell the subjects for the next tests, etc. They caused some raised eyebrows and minor investigations leading nowhere but caused little harm in the end.

Then he met the oldest daughter of the General commanding the Academy, whom he found to be an acceptable potential wife as soon as he saw her. Unfortunately, the young woman was already engaged to be married to the school's fencing master, who, while almost 15 years her elder was completely in love with her, as was she with him.

When the man, one day, made the mistake of severely admonishing him for his shortcomings, making him feel ridiculed, he stole one of his professor's papers.

Imitating his writing, he then sent the woman he loved a letter addressed to another woman, seemingly by accident. As she came to demand explanations from her betrothed, unable to explain anything to her since he was completely dumbfounded by her accusations, she ended up declaring she never wanted to see him again, then threw her engagement ring at him. Her hurtful words as well as her father's decision to fire him caused the young man a breakdown so severe that he attempted to take his own life. He was saved, at the last moment, just before he threw himself off of one of the towers of the Academy's main building, by Gilberto himself. Losing everything he held dear, Gilberto's fencing professor left heartbroken, never to see the woman he loved again.

As for Gilberto, the General even rewarded him for saving his former professor and agreed when he expressed his intention to begin courting his daughter. The young woman, who had been severely traumatized by everything which had happened, though, instinctively disliked his company and, just a few weeks later, reaching the conclusion that she had probably committed the worst mistake of her life, left to find her former fiancé.

In the meantime, when Gilberto recounted his latest deeds to his 'mother', certain she'd be proud of him, he ended up giving her a new idea instead.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

*Aula = en. classroom.

AN: According to my research the Academic year in Spain in 1807 started a little after mid-October. While respecting that date, I did take some liberties as to how the year was structured, since it served this story.

Also, the events and descriptions in the next chapters, while partly respecting historical facts and dates, are not very accurate from a historical point of view, considering that the war in Spain was far worse than in this story and, besides some pivotal dates and events, the rest is fiction. Seeing how canon makes Diego out to be a rather innocent young man when leaving Madrid to return to California and Sir Kendall mentions something to the point that he doesn't know the real world, I decided he could have only been so if he had somehow been spared from witnessing much of the human tragedy of the time.

PS: Since I am no longer a member of the fanfiction Facebook group, I will no longer be posting the link to my updates there. Sorry about that! I will, however, try to post at least once or twice a week, but I am still reconsidering parts of this story, so no promises.