Meanwhile, in the Spanish port of Malaga, Gilberto Risendo was brought up thinking, for the first sixteen years of his life, that he was the son of a former navy captain. His 'mother', did her best to cultivate his fighting skills from a young age, sacrificing a large portion of her small fortune in that endeavor, already planning on how to use him to get her revenge on Alejandro de la Vega.

Encouraged by her to never back down and always attack first, Gilberto soon became feared by the other children at school, whom he deprived of both food and toys, only to destroy them in front of their previous owners. He did so only because seeing them cry made him happy. As the priest running the establishment used to say, "he had all the makings of a leader, but the character of a crook."

Then, the day he turned sixteen, Ynez sat him down and told him they needed to have a serious conversation.

"There is a truth I have hidden from you, my son!" She started. "I wanted to wait until you were old enough to understand, and the only reason I never told you this before is that I wanted to protect you."

The teenager looked at her puzzled but silently waited for her to continue.

"You are not really my son, Gilberto." She uttered, looking straight at him, then kneeled in front of the chair on which he was sat.

"Not your son? What are you saying, Mother?" He asked aghast. "But you raised me. You're the only mother I ever had. And I'm just like my father! You've always told me that!"

"You are a lot like the man who was my husband. But he wasn't your father, either." She answered as tears started falling from her eyes on command. "Your true parents are called Alejandro and Elena de la Vega. I was a midwife when you were born, Gilberto, and helped Doña Elena deliver you… and your twin brother."

"I have a brother?" He asked. "And my parents? I have a father?"

"You do, but he never deserved you. Never wanted you!"

"What? Why, Mother? Why are you saying that?"

"I will tell you the entire story, Gilberto. You are old enough now to know it all." She answered, standing up and pacing a little, pretending to lose herself in sad memories. "As I said, at the time of your birth I was working as a midwife. My husband had just died, leaving me widowed and childless, after only a few months of pure happiness together. I was never lucky, I guess… The one man I ever loved was claimed by God too soon. And then, poor Fabio, whom I would have married after arriving here, so that you'd grow up with a good father, also left me much too early. But, enough about me and my sorrows…"

"Mother, I don't understand…"

"You will… Gilberto, you are the first-born child of the De la Vegas, and, as such, Don Alejandro's true heir. But your father, you see, he was a cruel man. When you were born, your legs were misshaped. I tried to tell them it was nothing to worry about, that you were to be a normal child, just like your baby brother. But he didn't believe me, Gilberto. Don Alejandro didn't want to take the risk of having a deformed heir. He, thus, decided that Diego, his second-born son, was his true heir and arranged for you to be sent away to an institution that takes care of such children. They are horrible places, Gilberto!

"In vain I begged and argued with him. He wouldn't listen, but, instead, treated me cruelly, threatening that, should anyone find out about you, I would feel the full extent of his wrath and end up in jail or worse. When I realized there was nothing I could do to convince him, I took you and gotten as far away from Madrid as I could." She recounted.

"But… Didn't my mother…my real mother, do anything? Would she have just allowed him to send me away?"

"Your mother… No… Your mother worships Don Alejandro and would never do or say anything to contradict one of his decisions. She is a weak soul, the poor woman. Once your father's mind was made, she also rejected you, not even taking you in her arms once. She probably also thought it would be much less work to bring up only one child than two." Ynez replied.

"I want to talk to them! I want to see them, Mother!" Gilberto stated, standing up.

"I know, my son. I anticipated this reaction. Unfortunately, that will not be possible, at least, not yet. You see, less than a year after you were born, your parents left Madrid and headed with your brother to California, a territory northwest of New Spain. There is where your destiny awaits, Gilberto! Don Alejandro is one of the richest men in that part of the world, and that fortune belongs to you, my son."

"California?" He asked pensively.

"Yes. And you will, one day, travel to that land and reclaim both your name and your inheritance. But we need to be smart, and patient, Son. If you go before you are ready, who knows what they will do to you? Do not underestimate the De la Vegas! They are rich. Your brother was raised in luxury and will not easily accept giving up everything he believes to belong to him, just like your father might rather have you dead than rivaling the son he has raised."

"He would do that? Kill his own son?"

"I wouldn't put anything past him. He was a soldier. Rumors are he killed his own big brother, his own twin, on the battlefield, so that he could inherit the family fortune. He would never admit to that, of course, and another man was blamed for the crime, but he was the one who benefited from it, not that scapegoat. No… When dealing with the De la Vegas, we need to be very careful, Gilberto, and it all needs to be planned to perfection."

"You are right, Mother." He agreed. "But you must help me! With your support, I will have my vengeance and my birthright restored to me one day, if I'll need an army to help me do so! By God, I will!" He uttered as he stood up, facing a big cross nailed to the eastern wall of the room.

Unknown to him, Ynez Risendo, who was watching him from behind smiled wickedly. Yes, Gilberto. She though. One day you will make that man pay, for his fortune should have been mine, had Alfonso returned to me.

ZZZ

Misguided, fill with rage and hatred, during all those years Ynez Risendo thought about the De la Vegas and the De Laras constantly, plans of revenge occupying her every waking hour.

Several months after she had told Gilberto who his true parents were, he had come up one day with the idea of paying someone to spy on them in Los Angeles. Ynez dismissed it, explaining that they did not have the money or someone of confidence to send there, but, as she started considering the idea, she realized she knew someone in Madrid who might become her spy in the house of the De Laras.

She had met the woman in her youth while attending the same village school. The woman in question had found herself destitute after her parents passed away and in need of employment. Inez had helped her once, while her father was still alive, to find employment as a servant with one of his acquaintances, so the woman was indebted to her.

Señora Risendo's only problem, however, was getting in touch with Honoria, as her acquaintance was called, and offering her a deal. She, thus, determined to travel to Madrid. Once there, she was pleasantly surprised to find out that nobody had been looking for either her or Gilberto, nor had anyone found the body of the maid she had murdered when taking him.

That was the first good news for her. The second was that Honoria had never married, yet dreamt about a small house in the countryside where she might finally find a widower she could wed. It was particularly good news because Ynez knew people would do almost anything if they were offered the chance to accomplish their dreams.

So, she offered the woman a monthly payment should she agree to seek employment with the De Laras and keep an eye on them for her – which, from Ynez's perspective, just meant spying on the family. She explained to her old acquaintance that she needed the information because she had heard of a plot against them and, having once been in their service, she felt obliged to help them in any way she could. She also mentioned that their enemies' plan involved using the count's grandson, so any information she might find on him or from him would be extremely useful.

Thus, by 1806, Ynez Risendo had a spy in the house of Diego's grandfather, one who made sure to send her copies of the letters she found written by the young don, and even stop those recently arrived until Ynez sent her a message agreeing for her to give them to her master.

To make communication easier, a few months later, she even sold everything she had in Malaga and, with the money, bought a small apartment in Madrid, yet never told Gilberto about the De Laras, for fear he might seek them out and find out the truth before she had the chance to put her plan into motion.

ZZZ

Diego was 18 when his father (reluctantly) consented to let him go to Spain to further his education. Don Alejandro had many reasons to feel uneasy with that decision since the trip was a dangerous one and his son reminded him a little too much of his brother not to fear he might decide against returning home. In fact, that was the one promise Diego had to make for him to give his approval: that, when his father would ask him to return, he would do so.

Gaining admission to the university, however, came with a whole set of different problems, the most important of which was getting a baccalaureate degree. Since no secondary schools existed at the time anywhere in Alta California, he could only obtain one in the major cities of New Spain, by passing the exams with the other young people his age.

Normally, he would have taken that exam a year or two earlier, but Don Alejandro was not particularly inclined to let him travel such long distances at the time. As his son was becoming a man, though, he started setting aside his parental worries and decided he should give him the space to mature.

Thus, he wrote to his cousin in Guadalajara, the same who had once hosted him and his brother during the time they attended school there, and the man gladly opened his doors to his nephew. Diego went there accompanied by his tutor, Señor Mateo, and one of his father's vaqueros, called Nando, who was charged with protecting the De la Vega heir.

When they arrived, Don Nicolas, who was in his 70s at the time and his vision was no longer what it once was, took one look at Diego and called him "Alfonso", almost fainting at seeing him. The young don smiled kindly and introduced himself, and the old don shook his head, assuring him he looked a lot like Alejandro's dead brother.

The following two weeks, while, during the day, the tall caballero and his tutor spent their time going over the subjects Diego needed to know for the exams or visiting with the professors at the school where he was due to take the exams, so that they might also test his knowledge, during the evening, their host regaled them with stories about the mischievous behavior of his father and uncle while growing up.

When the list with the scores obtained by each student taking the test needed to obtain the baccalaureate degree was posted on the announcement board, Señor Mateo could barely help himself from crying at seeing that his pupil had obtained the maximum scores in every subject, surpassing by much the other graduates. He did get drunk that evening, though, and sang for Diego, rather badly, a song his peers used to sing in university for the year's best student.

Since the next ship to California was only due to leave at the end of August, the three travel companions took the opportunity and spent the next couple of weeks in the Mexican town exploring it with the same childish wonder with which Don Alejandro and Alfonso had explored it when first they arrived there.

Then, in August of 1806, Diego, Señor Mateo, and Nando took their goodbyes from their graceful hosts and headed back to California, the don with a new baccalaureate degree and recommendations from several of the school's professors whom he had impressed during the short he had spent with them while preparing for the exams; his tutor with the certainty that the young De la Vega would be welcomed at any University he'd decide to attend; and Nando with all the knowledge he had accumulated during that trip, and the memory of impressively big cities situated south of Los Angeles.

On their way, though, news reached them that Don Nicolas was on his death bed, having fallen ill soon after they had left Guadalajara. So, at Diego's decision, they sent a message to let Don Alejandro know that they were delayed and made their way back to arrive just a day before the old don's death.

After the man's funeral, since they had no chance to reach Acapulco in time to board the ship for San Pedro, and the next one was only due to leave in a couple of months, Diego and his companions decided to ride home.

ZZZ

As they journeyed north the news they received became increasingly more worrisome.

They called it "The August Revolution" even if it was just a small rebellion, started after a few drunk lancers got into a fight with several young men in one of the villages situated about a week's ride north of Guadalajara. The military men resulted injured and their commander ordered all the other men involved in the fighting executed. That action, though, only ignited the discontent of the masses, and the local official, as well as his men soon found themselves at the wrong end of a noose.

From then on things only escalated as discontent contaminated more and more villages throughout the territory and troops were sent to stop the rebellion before it spread even further.

It was a cold afternoon of early September 1806 when Diego, Señor Mateo, and Nando started hearing the far-away howl of bullets and cannonballs. As the noises got further and further away, they dared continue their journey, and, about two hours after passing through the ruins of what had been a prosperous settlement just weeks earlier, they stumbled upon a battlefield littered with corpses.

Diego dismounted and his companions followed his lead, as they started checking for survivors. In the end, they only found one: a small peasant boy dressed in a gray shirt and white pants. He was sitting with his back at a tree, and, rather miraculously, seemed uninjured. The young caballero went to him and, without a word, picked him up in his arms, then returned with him to his companions.

"What should we do with him, Don Diego?" Nando asked.

"He might be an orphan." Señor Mateo pointed out, looking at the bodies of dead men and women all around them.

"Which is why we need to find him a home before we return to Los Angeles," Diego stated.

Using his right hand to mount while securing the boy in his arm with his left, he steered his mount in the direction from whence they came and, seeing how the nearest pueblo, which was, most probably, the one in which the boy and his parents had lived, was, as already mentioned, completely destroyed, he started making inquiries in the other villages nearby, some of which were partly still standing.

Their journey was, thus, prolonged by several weeks, as they searched for the boy's relatives in the hope to find him a new home. That task proved more difficult than any of them had imagined, especially as the child proved to be not only traumatized by the massacre he had witnessed, as Diego had first thought, but deaf and mute as well. Their search lasted almost four weeks and, in all that time, the caballero and the young boy developed an increasing affinity for each other.

In order to communicate with him, Señor Mateo came up with the idea of using sign language and started teaching both him and Diego the signs he knew. Nando also tried to pay attention but was not as fast as his young master in remembering all the signs.

About three weeks after their search for the boy's relatives had started, as he proved unable to remember either his name or his life before the battle, and no relative or family willing to take him in was found, Diego decided to give him a new name and take him to Los Angeles, hoping his father would agree to raise the child in the De la Vega household.

After a night of running through a wide range of possible first names for him, he woke up in the morning to find the boy sharing an apple with his horse while petting the animal and he suddenly had a name for him. The fact that it was also the second name of one of his grandfathers was just one more argument to choose it. The young boy seemed to like it when Diego looked at him and spoke it for the first time, indicating through signs that it was the name he wanted to give him and that it meant 'lover of horses'. So, from that day on, the young orphan boy went by the name 'Felipe'.

ZZZ

Having been impossible for Diego to send word to Don Alejandro about the child before returning home, already two months later than originally planned, the old don had quite the puzzled look on his face at seeing his charge. His son dismounted, then helped his ward do the same.

"This is Felipe, Father." He uttered as he introduced the boy. "We found him on a battlefield. He can't hear or speak, is an orphan, and, as far as we were able to find out, has no living relatives. I was hoping we could be his family from now on."

The don looked at him with a mixture of pride and astonishment, then squatted and extended his hand to the young boy, who first glanced at Diego to check if it was alright to extend his own hand in response.

Just like his son, Don Alejandro didn't have the heart to turn his back on such a small child who no longer had anyone in the world to care for him. Thus, after shaking Felipe's hand, he stood up to embrace Diego, mentioning how much he had missed him, and that, of course, the boy could stay. Then, he invited all of them, both their companions included, to have dinner inside, so that they could exchange news.

The older don was saddened to hear about his cousin's death, reminisced about his school years, and changed the subject as soon as he felt tears forming in his eyes at remembering Alfonso and Don Nicolas. Then, since there was, once more, a child in the house, he asked the cook to bake him a pie and used it to gain Felipe's affections while Diego went to visit the Escalantes.