Upon his return, Zorro found the external entrance to his refuge wide open. Fearing the worst, he left Tornado outside, unsheathed his sword, and slowly made his way inside the cave, doing his best to ignore the foul smell he could sense. He stopped in his tracks and looked around in astonishment just as he reached the main room.
Some of the glassware on the table had been broken, and the caballero frowned at remembering exactly what substances he was holding in them.
Felipe was sweeping the floor, looking scornfully at D'Artagnan. The man himself was leaning against a wall, all covered in flour, his eyes flushing red and swollen.
"What happened here?" Zorro proceeded to ask.
"What are those devilish things?" His guest asked instead, pointing towards a corner of the cave where some of the time-delay devices were kept. "Is this a hideout or a death trap?"
"What did you do?" The masked man wondered, putting his sword back at realizing there was no immediate danger there.
"I was just trying to figure out what those… things were!" D'Artagnan recounted, pointing towards the mentioned devices. "I tried to open one and the cord on the top fell off. Moments later, as I was looking at it, it exploded, covering me with flour. I was so shocked that I instantly took a few steps back, bumped into that table, and some of the glass things there fell on the ground spilling some colored liquids which mixed, and they formed this gas… The cave filled up in seconds. I spent the next ten minutes crying and I didn't even know why!"
"You left him alone?" Zorro asked his son.
"The external alarm rang and I went to see what was happening. It was one of Grandfather's horses, so I took him back to the corral, but, by the time I returned, he had already caused the disaster!" Felipe signed exasperated.
"I see…" The masked man replied. "My friend, you really should be more careful here!" He continued, arms folded across his chest. "You were lucky this time! Most of those devices are explosives! For the future, please refrain from touching… well… anything, really!"
"Trust me, I've learned my lesson! Now, may I, please, have a bath?" D'Artagnan wondered in a desperate tone, as he was completely white, from head to boots.
"I think I can arrange that. But you will be helping my son clean up this mess while I get you fresh clothes. I can't have you leave flour all over the hacienda. And before I go arrange anything, I need to make sure I can bring Tornado in." Zorro answered.
About half an hour later, after the stallion was stabled, the cave cleaned, the foul smell completely gone, and everyone informed about the results of Zorro's nightly incursion. Diego brought D'Artagnan a nightshirt and some slippers, then guided him out of the cave. Just as they were in the library, though, knocks were heard on the door together with De Soto's voice, demanding that they'd be allowed in immediately.
"The kitchen!" Diego exclaimed, guiding his friend there just as Don Alejandro was coming to open the door.
"Where is she, De la Vega?" Don Manolo asked right away, pushing his way inside.
"Where is who?" He wondered.
"My servant! Where are you hiding her?" He asked as he started searching, followed by De Soto and six lancers.
"Your servant? What would she be doing here?" Don Alejandro wondered as the lancers started their search. "What is this about, Alcalde?"
"Don Diego and Señor D'Artagnan convinced me earlier today that they only wanted to talk to one of Don Manolo's servants. Then, two hours ago, the same young woman was abducted by Zorro. Let's just say we doubt it was just a mere coincidence."
"I want everyone arrested, De Soto! They are clearly in league with the outlaw!" Don Manolo demanded.
"If the girl is here, Don Manolo, you may rest assured I will take all appropriate measures!" The Alcalde answered.
"She is not here! And neither I, nor my son are in league with Zorro!" Don Alejandro spat, furiously.
"Alcalde! We found Don Diego and Señor D'Artagnan!" A lancer called from the kitchen.
"Awake! I knew it! They must have been trying to hide her!" Don Manolo muttered as everyone followed the lancer to the mentioned room, but froze in place at entering it.
Diego was leaning against a wall, a finger to his lips while his friend was in his nightgown, all covered in flour, kneading dough, a lost look in his eyes.
"Keep quiet!" The tall caballero whispered. "He is sleepwalking and it's dangerous to wake him up. Besides, I'm rather curious what he is baking."
"Sleepwalking?" Don Manolo shouted enraged.
D'Artagnan shook his head as if awakening at hearing his voice, and fell, seemingly unconscious, into his friend's arms.
"I told you not to wake him up!" Diego chided as he lowered D'Artagnan to the floor, pretending he was too heavy for him to hold. "I'll need help carrying him to his room!"
Everyone looked confused at them for a short while before De Soto ordered his men to help with his wife's cousin. About ten minutes later, as the lancers were still searching the hacienda, Diego came back to ask why they were there, pretending innocence.
"Did Zorro bring her here, Diego? The young woman. Don Manolo's servant girl…" De Soto asked. "If we find her and you don't admit to her being here, I'll have to accuse you all of complicity in her abduction."
"The servant? The one who proved out to not be whom we were searching for? Why would she be here? And what does Zorro have to do with her?" The tall caballero faked not understanding what he was being asked.
"He was in my house tonight, and he had come to take her away! He barely escaped with his life, but next time he won't be so lucky!" Don Manolo stated.
"She's not in the hacienda, Alcalde! We searched everywhere!" A lancer showed up to say.
"Then search the stables and around the hacienda!" Don Manolo ordered. "My son wants her back!"
"You won't find her here, so you are wasting your time," Diego uttered. "But Zorro only takes those he deems need protection. Have you been harming her, Señor?"
"She is my servant. It's not your business what I do with her!" The man replied enraged.
"It is my business that you are disturbing us at such a late hour and accuse us of being in league with an outlaw despite having no proof it is so." He answered with an icy look as his father was watching him puzzled. "Besides, I have seen you trying to hit that young woman. I've seen how scared she was of you. If what you say it's true, and Zorro did take her, I am certain he only did so in order to keep her safe from you…"
"And how do you know that?" Don Manolo asked, looking Diego straight in the eyes.
The caballero maintained eye contact for about half a minute, then adverted his eyes, also changing his tone.
"Zorro has been around for long enough for us to know what we should expect of him." He replied.
The lancers soon returned with news that they had not found the woman they were looking for after searching the stables.
"I think this has gone on long enough! I want everyone out of my house and my property! Now!" Don Alejandro uttered as soon as that news was given.
Rather glad to have been defeated for once, De Soto, who despised Don Manolo as much as everyone else, but was doing his bidding because of his own ambitions, asked his men to leave, assuring the haciendado that he would do his best to continue searching for his maid.
"Can she be somewhere in the pueblo? The church or the tavern, perhaps?" Diego heard the don ask the Alcalde as they were mounting.
"I very much doubt it. The tavern is fully occupied tonight and there are no places where one could hide there. My men and I have searched the place many times. The Church or the Mission… perhaps… although my best bet is that he's hiding her in one of his hideouts… a cave or an abandoned farmhouse, perhaps. I will organize my lancers to start the search in the morning." De Soto answered to the tall caballero's puzzlement.
"Is she here, Diego?" Don Alejandro wondered as soon as they saw them heading away.
"Of course not, Father. The Alcalde and his men would have found her if she was." He answered calmly, but Don Alejandro could see that his son was enraged. He didn't push him, though, and, satisfied with his answer, although uncertain whether to believe it or not, he said 'Goodnight!' and headed for his quarters.
ZZZ
The following three days De Soto, Don Manolo, his sons, and the lancers spent looking for Angela at the Church, at the Mission, in every cave and abandoned farmhouse around the pueblo, never once even entering Victoria's tavern for anything else but a meal. The Alcalde had noticed, the morning after the young woman had gone missing, the scolding look the taverness was giving Don Manolo and his older son and resolved to keep the Baros as far away from her and the pueblo as he could, for as long as he could. That was because, in truth, he had also seen how the young woman was being treated and felt the don's obsession with finding her disturbing, so he actually hoped he wouldn't, but still had to pretend he was doing everything in his power to.
In the meantime, as Victoria was already informed about most of her life story, Angela could do little but fully trust her new benefactor. After the first night, seeing how the lancers seemed to avoid searching the tavern, she moved to the taverness' room as the older woman did her best to comfort and help her, encouraging her to become stronger and more certain of herself. The two of them had few things in common, and the age difference between them was rather big. Yet Victoria was more than eager to practice her motherly instincts, and Angela could only be grateful to, for once, find herself looked after.
For years, she had lived certain that she was alone in the world, unable to count on others for protection. Isadora, whom she had always loved as a sister, even without knowing that was what she was to her, was too young to defend her. Her stepmother, whom she had, for the longest time, believed to be her benefactor, always made her feel bad, ugly and insignificant. The doña's second husband had been a good man, and her life had been peaceful while they lived with him. But he was also weak and unable to bring himself to do anything to displease or contradict his wife. Truth be told, her stepmother always had a way to make any man do whatever she wanted, even if whatever power she had over them seemed to be fading lately.
Her latest husband was proof of that. He had initially seemed as weak and submissive as Señor Almodovar, but that was just an act. After their marriage, the don proved to be cruel and Doña Luisa unexpectedly realized that she had but little influence over him. He would beat Angela for the smallest mistake, sometimes using his belt and whipping her with it until his wife would beg him to stop, assuring her husband that her daughter's 'maid' had learned her lesson. The señora, herself, had rarely beaten Angela after she had surpassed her childhood and stopped troubling her, running away to play and returning with ripped or dirty clothes. She, however, only objected to her husband beating her when she felt he was overdoing it.
What Don Manolo's eldest son did to her, however, was much worse than anything his father had ever done.
"It started the night of Doña Luisa and Don Manolo's wedding." She told Victoria one evening, as the older woman was combing her hair. "Samuel got drunk and… he came to me… I was sleeping. He put a hand on my mouth and told me I was his from that day on, because everything that belonged to his stepmother also belonged to his father now, and what was his father's, was also his. He promised not to hurt me… but he did. I was a virgin… No man had ever touched me before, I swear!" She uttered, tears falling from her eyes. "The next day I went to Doña Luisa and told her, and she told her husband. When he heard… it was the first time he beat me. He called me a whore and said that I'd better be healthy, threatening that if his son caught any disease from me, he'd kill me with his own hands. They then took me to a doctor who demanded to have a look at… at my intimate parts… it was horrible. He confirmed I was healthy and, since then, Samuel had been coming to my room every few nights… I tried locking, leaving the key in the door, but the following day he took away my key… and made sure to punish me for having dared to lock the previous night. There was nothing I could do to stop him."
"Those monsters! They can't get away with that! The Alcalde should know about… about what they did! He has to arrest them!" Victoria uttered, flushed with rage.
"No! Please! Don't tell anyone! I'd be so embarrassed… And what is Señor D'Artagnan tell my grandparents, and they won't want me anymore? I'll be all alone in the world and I don't think I can survive on my own!" Angela asked tears in her eyes. "I can't risk it…"
"It was not your fault! What those people did… they abused you. Doña Luisa… she pretends that she is a great lady…and she was a servant before your father married her! She was hired to take care of you and is a rich señora only because she stole from you! And those men… Oh! If they ever again even enter my tavern, I will beat them with the pan!" The taverness muttered with ire, then calmed down at seeing the frightened look in her new friend's eyes. "Nobody will harm you again!" She assured her. "In two days you'll be 18, and you'll be able to decide for yourself what to do next. I don't know Señor D'Artagnan very well, but Diego trusts him. I'm sure he will do everything to protect you on the way back, and then you will have your grandparents to look after you."
"Do you think they still love me?" Angela wondered.
"They send Señor D'Artagnan to return you to them after 15 years. I don't think they have ever stopped loving you… nor do I think they ever would!" Victoria replied with a smile, embracing the younger woman.
"And what if… What if they'll be disappointed with me? Señor Zorro said they are rich. What if they won't want me when they'll realize I am a far cry to what they surely imagined I would be like… I can read and write, and do some computations because Isadora insisted to teach me. But I don't know much about anything else… "
"Diego told me yesterday that your grandparents had spent the last 13 years believing you were dead. I'm sure that finding you alive, despite all you've been through, is much more than they could have hoped for. Anything else just fades in light of that. And you so young! You can still learn anything you want to learn!" She tried to assure her.
"You really think so?"
"I do. Just as I think that your stepmother, Don Manolo and his son should pay for what they did to you! Angela, it is your choice," Victoria uttered, "but you have every right to demand justice. And if the Alcalde won't give it to you, I am certain Zorro will!"
ZZZ
The day she turned 18, Angela dared to leave the room when she saw from the room's window that D'Artagnan and the De la Vegas were coming into the pueblo.
The bruise below her eye had all but disappeared, but the ones she had on her arms were just turning greenish. All those bruises, though, did little to take away from her beauty. More than one of the tavern's patrons stared at her open-mouthed as she descended wearing one of Victoria's white blouses and a colored skirt. The young woman was in good spirits for, she was certain, her nightmare was finally over and she could start anew with people who loved her. Her only doubt concerned her sister, Isadora, whom she had always considered the most important person in her life. Parting from her was, thus, still unfathomable and, in her mind, she was constantly going over ideas on how to convince Doña Luisa to let the younger girl come to France with her.
Diego wasn't sure what to think when he saw her. The next ship heading for Acapulco was leaving only a week later and he would have preferred for her to remain hidden for as long as possible. But, on the other hand, he knew that he needed to convince the Alcalde to give her traveling papers, or she wouldn't be able to embark at all, so hiding her till the last moment wasn't an option, either.
"Señorita Angela!" He uttered with a kind smile. "I trust you are doing well!"
"Si, Don Diego. I had to remain hidden, but today I turn 18 and become the mistress of my own fate." She answered just as De Soto and Jessie stepped inside for breakfast.
"Señorita Angela!" They both uttered at the same time.
"Who did this to you?" Jessie continued to ask as she neared her to check her bruises.
"Don Manolo. His oldest son also… harmed me. I would like to make a formal complaint, Alcalde." She answered, as she glanced, still a bit uncertain, between Victoria, who nodded proudly, and D'Artagnan.
"You are their servant, Señorita…" De Soto hesitated.
"Does that mean that they have the right to beat her?" Jessie asked her husband.
"No… I didn't say they do, but a servant complaining about her masters…" Ignacio hesitated.
"They are not my masters. Doña Luisa was my maid when I was a child, then married my father. When he died, she convinced me I was an orphan she took pity on, in order to get her hands on the fortune my father left me!" She said, loud enough for the entire tavern to hear.
"How dare you say such lies, you whore?" Don Manolo, who was just coming in as she was uttering those words, asked, already raising his hand to slap her.
D'Artagnan was the first to see his intention this time and stood up to defend her, catching the man's hand in mid-air.
"Señorita Angela is under my protection, Señor!" He said defiantly. "I have been sent here by her grandparents, and I will take her back to them! You are not to touch one hair on her head. Never again!"
"And I want you out of my tavern!" Victoria added her discontent. "You are never to step foot in here for as long as you live!"
"You ask? You are that outlaw's accomplice, aren't you? You hid her!" Don Manolo stated. "I'll have you arrested!"
"She protected me!" Angela retorted. "And you no longer have any power over me! None of you have" She stated as Doña Luisa also entered the establishment, followed by her daughter and stepsons.
"You belong to me you fool! I have raised you and you still have to work several more years to pay me back all the money I spent on you." She added as she had no idea what the young woman had revealed just moments earlier.
"You spent on me? You stole the fortune my father left me! You treated me as a servant, although I am your stepdaughter!" Angela shouted, enraged, as tears gathered in her eyes. "You lied to me my entire life!" Doña Luisa became livid and was at a loss for words for a few moments. "I want you to arrest them, Alcalde! That woman is a thief, this man, Don Manolo, attacked and beat me on numerous occasions, and him…" she uttered, her eyes filled with hatred when looking at Don Manolo's oldest son, "He raped me! I want justice!"
De Soto, as well as the rest of the people there, stared in disbelief, glancing between Angela and the people she was accusing.
"Lies! All lies!" Doña Luisa shouted. "My real stepdaughter is dead! This woman just wants to… to fool you into thinking she's her! She's just an impostor!"
"No, Señora!" Diego contradicted her. "We have proof that she truly is Angela de Marin, your stepdaughter, Señorita Isadora's half-sister, and, indeed, the true heir to her father's fortune. I understand there is even a will to prove it." He uttered.
"It's true!" Isadora stated. "Señor Zorro found it. It states that the entire fortune belongs to Angela! And I have seen how my stepfather and my stepbrother treated her! I can vouch to it all."
Her mother stared at her in disbelief. "What are you doing, stupid girl? Is this how you repay me for all I've done for you? I should have never allowed her to spend so much time with you! She filled your head with lies and took advantage of your naivety!"
"Sergeant," De Soto called for Mendoza as soon as he made up his mind, "I've heard enough! Take everyone to the garrison! We'll clarify this there. Señoritas, I will need written testimonies."
"Isadora is barely 14 and Angela is 17, so they are not old enough to testify to anything!" Doña Luisa said when she saw herself between two lancers.
"I am 18 today. I can testify!" Angela replied.
"And I have my father's will, and can give it to you, Alcalde!" Isadora uttered just as a few lancers took hold of the Baros and escorted them outside the tavern.
Don Manolo's older son, thinking he was being arrested, fully aware of what Angela's accusation meant for him, took advantage of a moment of distraction, and snatched himself free from the hands of the lancers already holding him, trying to make a run for the nearest horse. As he mounted, the lancers surrounded the animal, who, scared both by the unknown rider and the men trying to stop him, reared, throwing Samuel off his back. The young man fell down awkwardly, breaking his neck at impacting the ground.
"No!" Don Manolo shouted as he heard his heir's neck cracking.
Jessie and Diego hurriedly made their way towards him to check his pulse, but it was easily clear that there was nothing they could do for him.
"He's dead!" The tall caballero informed everyone.
"No! Noooo! You and your men will pay for this, De Soto! And you, you wench! Your lies did this!" He shouted, as his hate-filled eyes rested on Angela. "I will kill you with my bare hands!" He threatened her.
"My man just tried to stop him from running away. Your son shouldn't have attempted to escape, by stalling a horse, Don Manolo. Being a horse thief is a death punishable offense." De Soto calmly told the enraged don. "Gomez, see to the body and arrange the burial with Padre Benitez! Señor, I'm afraid you still have to accompany me." He told the grieving father, then ordered his lancers to continue their way with the detainees towards the prison, Angela, D'Artagnan, and Isadora following them.
"For once I have to say I am proud of how he's been acting!" Jessie told Diego as she was watching her husband.
The caballero attempted a smile but didn't feel particularly proud of anyone or anything at that moment, as a sense of foreboding overwhelmed him.