Alejandro mopped unashamedly at the sweat pouring down his forehead. To call attention to one's inability to withstand the heat was a serious breach of proper deportment, but Alejandro could not really care. Social graces were Diego's forte, never his own. It was damnably hot in this square and the alcalde showed no sign of letting them leave any time soon.
They'd all been called here: all the Dons and every other person not strictly needed for patrolling the various holdings. Diego's health allowed Alejandro to insist that he stay at home, and Hernan de Carraco was still too weak to even rise from bed most days, but aside from these exceptions, everyone else of any kind of importance in all of Los Angeles stood here in the square.
The alcalde was holding another one of his justice days. Every few days he rounded up all those in violation of the slightest law. Judgement was swift, punishment severe. With Zorro gone, there was no one to speak against him, and the alcalde grew bolder by the day.
Once upon a time, Alejandro himself might have raised a voice in protest, but Ignacio de Soto had saved the life of his son, and that bound Alejandro's hands more firmly than the strongest chains might once have. So he stood here, forced to watch as de Soto ordered peasants lashed for not paying their taxes, for not taking sufficient part in the patrols de Soto had organized, for half a dozen real and imagined excuses. Never mind that the peasants were the hardest hit by de Soto's own criminal involvement with the bandits. De Soto had never been one to trouble himself with anything so trivial as fact.
Alejandro had made sure to lend money to whomever among his people required it to meet the taxes and ensured that the work rotations allowed for the men to show up for their subscription into de Soto's temporary militias, but that was all he could do.
"We should be doing something," Victoria said sharply beside him. "We cannot just let him do this."
"And what can we do?" Alejandro said. He thought, even if it were not for his debt to de Soto, that he might have trouble finding the necessary energy to speak today. "De Soto has won. Zorro is gone, the town under martial law. De Soto would be quite in his rights to execute anyone who interfered with him, and that includes you, my dear."
Victoria looked at him with a kind of pained disappointment. A not unfamiliar emotion in times like these, but usually he was the one expressing it, and Diego on the receiving end. He wondered if Diego had always felt as he did now, like speaking up would only do more harm than good.
There were fortunately not many lashings today. De Soto had been thorough enough in that regard that few men were remaining who had not paid the tax nor served his time. But then they hadn't been called here to witness a few peasants be beaten while men of supposed honor stood around and let it happen.
No, the lashings were just a preview. The main event was yet to come.
Alejandro looked up at the gallows that had been put into such repeated use after the last few weeks. There were many reasons to be worried about leaving Diego behind with a reduced guard, but this was not one of them. Diego, like his mother, had never been able to find justice in death, but Alejandro, who had spent so many years on the battlefield, could not share this view even if he did admire it.
The last unfortunate man was untied from the lashing post, his back a bloody ruin. De Soto looked on in cool satisfaction for a moment but then gestured at two of his men.
The people in the square shifted and murmured. Tension wracked every body and the slight relief brought by the pause in the proceedings ran through the crowd like a sigh. The anxiety levels of the townspeople, already ratcheted to unprecedented levels by the last few weeks, had reached an all time high and these little gatherings of the alcalde weren't helping. Watching all of these people be led to "justice" only called to mind the one man who remained free of the alcalde's soldiers. Domingo had yet to be so much as sighted, and the death toll had climbed to four. Although he had primarily targeted soldiers, many of the people in the square called the men of the garrison brother or son or husband. The alcalde had bent all the resources he could afford to the search, but everyone in Los Angeles had cause to know how difficult it was to find one vigilante if he chose to remain hidden. It was all anyone could think about, especially today.
Alejandro himself could think of little else. The hatred in the man's eyes as he'd shouted that last threat at Diego was all too easy to remember.
They will be speaking of the death I shall give you for years. I promise you that. I swear it on my father's grave.
His skin shivered slightly despite the heat. Diego was recovering, however slowly, but it had only been a little under two weeks since they'd found him and he still tired so easily. He would be in no condition to face someone like Domingo if the bandit chose to take advantage of Alejandro's absence.
Three men, bound in heavy chains, were dragged forward. Mendoza began to read out their crimes, but there was no point in it. Everyone knew who they were. Or at least they recognized the only one of any importance.
Esteban, Domingo's lieutenant. He'd been caught only a few days ago riding hard and fast to the north. Thanks to the alcalde's swift postings to towns all over California, the commandante had recognized him and thrown him on the first ship to Los Angeles.
Alejandro had only briefly set eyes on the man when they'd at last recovered Diego, but he was easy enough to pick out even so. The other two men were just two common thieves who'd been too stupid to flee Los Angeles when the wind had changed. One of them could barely stand, and the other, steadier on his feet, prayed noisily in between his sobs.
The third man, however, stood there as if none of this could touch him. From what little Alejandro had learned of Domingo and his right hand man from Diego and Ciro Esperanza, this could only be Esteban.
When the list of crimes came to an end, the alcalde stepped forward.
"You may be wondering why I called all of you good people from your homes on such a day," de Soto said. "I understand that our poor town has been plagued with many troubles of late and much rebuilding is to be done, but I wanted to show you that better times lie ahead. This man standing here thought he was beyond the reach of the law. He thought he was safe. But I am here to show you that no man is beyond the law. I pledge to you, good people, that any man who commits any crime against you will be found, no matter how far he may go, no matter how long it takes, and I will see justice done. No longer will lawlessness be allowed to rule in Los Angeles."
A little blunt, Alejandro thought, but then, it was probably meant to be. And what with the gallows looming over them all, he had to admit it had a certain effectiveness.
The first thief was dragged to his feet and literally hauled to the platform. Padre Benitez spoke a short prayer for the salvation of his soul, but de Soto's men were on a schedule, and it was only a few minutes before the next poor fool was being led up the ramp.
"The man disgusts me," Ciro Esperanza said, squeezing through the crowd to stand by Alejandro's side. "None of this was remotely necessary".
Alejandro could not help but agree. He had no particular objection to the manner of punishment. The evidence against all of these men was fairly conclusive, and even if their trials had been somewhat swift, there had never been any doubt of the verdict. But he did object to them all being dragged out here to be witnesses to this brutal display. Justice was sometimes bloody. Men were weak and had not the wisdom of the Almighty in rendering judgment, but it need not be held like this, on a stage, before women and children. It left a bitter taste in the back of his throat.
Esperanza cleared his throat in a dry cough. "And how is Diego? I had heard that he was improving."
Alejandro eyed him obliquely as Esperanza shifted his weight. The man looked embarrassed—as well he ought. But, then, Alejandro owed the man a sort of debt for the information he'd brought, and he perhaps had a certain right to know how Diego was recovering.
"The doctor informs us that he is out of danger now, though it will be some weeks before he recovers entirely."
That was the truth and certainly as much of it as he owed Esperanza, but Alejandro could not shake off his sense of unease where Diego was concerned and it was more than his fear of Domingo. It had been a few days now since Doctor Hernandez had said Diego might get out of bed for limited periods, which should have been a good sign, but Alejandro could not take it as such. In his mobile hours, Diego pursued his usual interests, but with a near franticness that was entirely new; he'd pick up a book only to discard it five minutes later, pick out a few chords on the piano and lapse into silence, pull out his journal and let the ink dry on the quill before it ever made it to the page. Diego just seemed so very angry, and worse, had the air of a man with a very important decision to which he could not settle. After all the recent mysteries where Diego was concerned, Alejandro could not help but worry.
"I am . . . very glad to hear that," Esperanza said. "I think I may owe him a greater debt than I may ever fully understand."
Alejandro nodded his reception of this statement, but he just wished the man would go. He wanted nothing more than to go back to the cooler comfort of the ranch.
A gunshot rang through the heavy, humid air just as Esteban was being led to the stairs. The soldier in front of the alcalde collapsed to his knees, blood staining the tunic of his uniform. Everyone froze for a moment, but then the screaming started.
Alejandro shoved Victoria behind him and looked frantically about the rooftops for signs of the shooter, but he did not immediately spot him.
"Zorro!"
Zorro? But then more people were shouting and pointing up at a rooftop slightly to Alejandro's side. He spun, pulling Victoria again behind him, and there he was. Zorro.
Alejandro's heart leapt within him, and he could not help but join in the villagers shouts of sheer exultation. He hadn't realized how much he'd been grieving the masked vigilante's death until seeing him standing there, vibrant and inarguably alive. They were saved. He whispered a quick prayer of thanks. The Lord had provided as Alejandro ought to have known He would.
But Zorro wasn't alone. He struggled fiercely with another figure. The second man was holding the gun that had almost certainly wounded the alcalde's soldier and the two of them were wrenching it back and forth between them. Zorro's movements were sluggish, almost forced, and he seemed to be heavily favoring one side. The second man shifted and delivered a short brutal kick that side and the masked man stumbled and nearly fell. Zorro recovered with a quick twist and gave a sharp tug to the weapon the both of them still gripped. Unbalanced by his sudden maneuver, the second man lost his balance on the slippery roof tiles and slipped over the forward edge.
A desperate grab of the overhang allowed the man to swing forward and fall in an awkward heap on the second story verandah.
Zorro, still clutching his side, finally straightened and ran along the edge of the roof, only to slide down the back of it and disappear from view.
"Domingo," Esteban shouted. "Domingo, get out of here. I am already lost, but you can still escape."
Domingo? Alejandro strained to get a better view of the man who was just now pulling himself to his feet and caught sight of the tangled silver pony-tail he remembered from the bandit's leader.
The man was a fool. What did he hope to accomplish here? The square was filled with soldiers—soldiers who were rapidly ringing the square. He could have no hope of escaping.
Domingo raised his gun again, this time clearly aiming for the alcalde, and Alejandro realized that maybe getting out of here was not Domingo's primary concern.
A whip cracked and Domingo's gun fell from his hand.
Zorro was standing just a few yards from Domingo on the verandah.
"This is not your fight, Senor Zorro," Domingo shouted. "If you had just stayed out of it I would have rid you of your alcalde forever."
Zorro took a step towards him, but Domingo swung over the railing and shimmied down one of the supports to the ground below. The people around him shouted in fear and scattered. In the confusion, Alejandro lost sight of him.
De Soto threw himself behind a line of his men.
"Shoot him," he shouted.
"Which one?" Mendoza asked.
"Both of them, you idiot."
A few soldiers half-heartedly raised their guns to point at Zorro, but Zorro made an easy flip over the railing to land solidly on his feet below.
A woman's scream cut through the confusion and the crowd parted a bare twenty feet from Alejandro to reveal Domingo gripping a women to his chest with a sword to her throat.
Zorro came at a run through the faceless crowd, but he came to a sudden halt when he saw what Domingo held.
"That's right, Fox," Domingo said. "Keep your distance. We all know how much you value these peasants. You wouldn't want her blood on her hands."
"It's not her that you want," Zorro said. "I think we both know that."
His voice was different, somehow: tired, slightly pained, familiar.
"Dearest God," Ciro Esperanza whispered beside him. Alejandro turned to meet his wide-eyed stare.
"You did not know, either," Esperanza said, stumbling back a step, eyes now wide as saucers. "Blessed Jesu, you did not know."
Alejandro whirled back to the scene before him.
"You," Domingo said. His sword lowered.
"Yes, it is me," said the man wearing Zorro's clothes and wielding Zorro's sword, but speaking with his son's voice.
But no one else seemed to have noticed. How this could be, Alejandro did not know. Did these people have no ears? Could they not see how obvious it was? And yet beyond Ciro Esperanza beside him, there were no exclamations of surprise. The people just called out Zorro's name over and over like a benediction, tears running down more than one person's face.
Alejandro looked wildly about the square. The soldiers had the whole thing surrounded now. There would be no escape. For either of them.
"I always knew you for a fool," Domingo said, face wildly triumphant. "But this surprises even me. Why show yourself? By the end of the day I meant for the alcalde, myself or the both of us to be dead. One or more of your enemies would have been removed by nightfall and all you had to do was stay hidden."
Diego's voice, and it was clearly, impossibly, his voice, was filled with a steel he'd not heard even in Zorro's before now. "Those soldiers that you murdered—they played no part in this. I will not let you pay the debt between us with the blood of others."
"How very noble of you," Domingo said. "Stupid, but noble. The alcalde has this place surrounded by this point. Neither of us will be getting out of here now."
The woman struggled and Domingo pulled the sword back in tight against her throat.
"Now, hero," he said, "put the sword down or she dies."
Zorro hesitated just a moment and Domingo drew the sword in just tight enough so that he hadn't yet drawn blood, but the slightest movement would cut the blade into her skin.
Zorro reached down carefully and placed his famous sword at his feet.
Domingo raised an eyebrow. "Very good. Now, the whip."
Zorro drew the whip from his belt in slow deliberate movements and added it to the sword on the ground.
Domingo gestured to the left with his chin and Zorro took a few steps away from his pile of weapons.
"I have done as you asked, now let her go," Zorro said. Alejandro had to think of him as Zorro, even if he continued to use Diego's voice.
"Excellent idea" Domingo said, throwing the sobbing woman at Zorro. Zorro caught her in one arm and spun away from the flung knife which followed, but his movement was just a hair slower than his usual lightening speed, and the knife drew a shallow cut across his right shoulder.
Zorro released the woman into the crowd and moved into a defensive stance, not letting the effect of this fresh wound appear on his face.
Alejandro could hear the alcalde shouting for his soldiers to do something, anything, but the crowd had surged into a nearly impenetrable ring around the bandit and the Fox, and the soldiers could not make it through.
Domingo swung his blade for Zorro's head. Zorro dove under the blade in a quick easy tumble, but the move drew him even farther from his weapons. Domingo charged at him, swinging in the wild, graceless manner of the man with no formal training in the sword. Zorro stepped in, light and quick, and grabbed Domingo's wrist in its downward swing. He ducked under the arm and used Domingo's momentum to swing him around and sent him flailing in another direction.
Domingo spun and flung another knife. Zorro threw himself on the man and small girl in the weapon's path, and it buried itself harmlessly in the wall of a building.
"You can't run forever, hero," Domingo growled.
Zorro tried to make a dash for his discarded weapons, but Domingo dove into his path. Zorro narrowly managed to block Domingo's sword arm with his right forearm, but the bandit brought up his knee sharp and hard into Zorro's ribs.
He followed the blow with a vicious back hand that sent Zorro stumbling back a step.
A second gunshot sounded through the air, this one accompanied by a man's hoarse shout. The crowd instantly parted, revealing a man on his knees clutching his shoulder and the alcalde holding a smoking pistol at the end of the hastily formed corridor.
Domingo froze, allowing Zorro to slip around a few precious feet closer to his sword.
"Gentlemen," de Soto said, gun firmly trained on Domingo, "you have no conception of how happy you've made me. When I made the arrangements for this little affair, I had no idea I would be entertaining such distinguished guests."
"You know I would never miss one of your parties, alcalde," Zorro said, bowing slightly.
Despite the overwhelming seriousness of the situation, Alejandro could not help but grin a little at the man's ability to show such flippancy, even here.
De Soto nearly screamed in frustration. "You! You are supposed to be dead. Tell me, what does it take for you to stay that way"
"What, and deny myself the pleasure of these little soirees of yours? Surely you are joking."
"Apparently I'll just have to try harder this time," de Soto. He swung the gun around towards Zorro, finger tightening on the trigger. Zorro slid to the side at the exact same moment, hurling the rock he'd concealed in his hand with deadly precision.
De Soto cried out and the gun flew wide.
Domingo, who'd not moved an inch, reached behind himself and drew a second pistol that had been tucked in against the small of his back. He pointed it at the alcalde who still stood there clutching his hand. The soldiers around him froze, though the hatred in their eyes said that for once this was not out of indifference.
"Domingo," Esteban said, still standing in his chains at the foot of the gallows. "Why did you come? You had to know you would never get out of here."
Domingo's fist at his side clenched until the knuckles went white, but the hand aiming the gun remained rock steady. "I was not going to let him execute you, not if I could stop it. And if I couldn't I was going to make sure he didn't enjoy his victory."
The man, Esteban, looked pained and dropped his head.
"Well, alcalde, I have delivered your Fox to you," Domingo said. "Is it not true that any man who brings the 'infamous outlaw Zorro' to justice will receive a pardon and a reward of several thousand gold?"
A dark wordless murmur rippled through the crowd.
De Soto's air of righteous indignation was perfect. Alejandro had never given the man enough credit for his acting skills. "Such crimes as yours have no pardon. All I can offer you is an appointment with the gallows after your friend."
Domingo laughed. "Of course. I should have known better than to have trusted a criminal like you."
Zorro inched a bit closer to his sword.
"Don't think I've forgotten about you, hero" Domingo said, not turning from the alcalde. "One more move and I shoot."
They stood there, all of them, frozen in place until Domingo laughed again.
"Well, this is a pretty choice isn't it? I have the both of you here in my palm, but to kill either of you is to give the other his dearest wish. And then there's my poor self, dead no matter which I choose."
De Soto's eyes shifted and his gaze flickered just for a moment to the rooftop opposite.
Alejandro realized only too late what it must mean. He, too, looked up, but it was too late, always too late. A soldier stood there with a rifle, but he was aiming at Zorro not Domingo.
The soldier adjusted his aim and Zorro finally appeared to catch the movement and slipped to the side. Domingo, misinterpreting his move, lurched towards him, swinging his gun around.
The rifle went off in the soldier's hand, rocking him backward. Alejandro turned to the drama before him, fully expecting to see his son's body lying on the ground.
But there, instead, lay Domingo. The crowd around the bandit and Zorro stilled, clutching at each other as if in support.
Zorro dropped to his knees beside the bleeding man on the ground.
"That bulled was meant for me," he said, voice tight.
"I am glad that it missed, then" Domingo said, coughing slightly. "If I could only choose one of you, it had to be the alcalde. You are only a fool. The alcalde killed my boys. I would not want him to have his triumph, not after that."
"Soldiers, I order you to arrest these men." Even de Soto seemed shaken by what he had just seen.
The soldiers didn't move.
Zorro drew himself with some apparent effort to his feet. He walked the few feet to his weapons and bent to pick them up. The whip went back to his belt, but the sword stayed in his hand.
He started walking toward the alcalde, seemingly ignoring the soldiers who were drawing in a tighter ring about him. His path drew him very near to Alejandro's little group standing there on the side, and Alejandro could see the sweat pouring down Zorro's pale face beneath the mask.
"Zorro," Victoria said a little helplessly beside him.
Zorro paused and turned to her. A small smile touched his lips.
"Ah, querrida, I am so very sorry. For everything." From the tone of his voice they might have been alone together and not in a square filled with people and soldiers. "I can only ask for your forgiveness."
With that he reached beneath his cloak and pulled out one single rose. He tossed it to Victoria, but it slipped between her clenching fingers and landed in the dust at her feet.
Alejandro bent to pick it up. For a moment he was lost in a memory of a young soldier and his wild, beautiful bride tumbling recklessly through the brambles of the valleys and backwoods of his newly acquired land. For years and years he had tried to grow cuttings of Elena's favorite rose in the garden that grew yearly behind their house, but it had never thrived. Elena had declared eventually that some things are meant to be free, and so the rose with its fragile golden petals and aroma like distilled summer was allowed to grow unmolested on the quiet isolated stream where they had discovered it so many years ago now.
"Don Alejandro."
Victoria's quiet voice drew Alejandro out of his memory and he allowed the sturdy girl beside him—so different from his fragile, glowing bride—to take the rose from his hand.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zorro take another step closer to the alcalde, and he forced himself to turn and watch Elena's son approach the alcalde and nearly his entire garrison with only the naked blade in his hand.
"Alcalde," Zorro said, raising his voice only slightly, "this charade ends here. I will not allow you to use my name against the people of this pueblo any longer."
The firm, deadly resolution in his voice sent shards of fear splintering through Alejandro's chest. He took a step forward, but Esperanza restrained him with a bruising grip.
"He has already taken too many chances today. If you step forward it will condemn him for sure."
Alejandro allowed himself to be pulled back, knowing Esperanza's words for the truth no matter how little he liked to hear it.
De Soto stepped forward, eyes sparking. "Do you mean to tell me you surrender?"
The people behind Zorro fell forward, crying out in denial. They gripped his sleeve, shoulder, cloak, whatever they could get their hands on. The soldiers raised their guns.
"Wait," cried Ciro Esperanza in his huge voice. The din of the crowd lowered. Esperanza lunged forward, hand raised in entreaty towards the soldiers.
"Over the last few months, we have seen our poor town besieged by trouble after trouble. Our lands, our happiness, our very lives came under great risk. And who was it who fought day after day to keep the tide back, to win back the town? Was it the alcalde? We caballeros with our wealth and privilege? No, it was one man—Zorro."
The people shouted and took up Zorro's name again in a chant. Alejandro watched as the expression on Zorro's face went from grim to horrified and then gradually fell into weary resignation.
Esperanza allowed the people's enthusiasm to die down a little. "And what did our alcalde do during this time? He sat behind his safe walls and allowed our houses to be set fire, our cattle stolen, our crops trampled. He allowed men like this Domingo to go free to terrorize the town. He attacked the one man who had done anything to bring an end to this nightmare.
"And so who do you think we should trust now? The alcalde, or Zorro? Zorro has always been there when we have had need of him and always will. I do not think we can say the same of Ignacio de Soto."
The people began shouting Zorro's name again. The soldiers began to be showered with small rocks, vegetable matter, whatever the people had on hand.
Zorro had closed his eyes briefly, but then squared his shoulders and stepped forward again. The restraining hands gripped at him desperately for one moment but then fell away.
As Zorro drew closer to the alcalde, a few of the soldiers stirred slightly and moved as if to block his path.
"My friends" Zorro said"you know I always find the opportunity to cross swords with you a most pleasant diversion, but my fight is not with you today."
The men looked at each other and then the wild, angry crowd and fell back.
"I will see you all stripped of your posts for this," de Soto shouted.
"I think rather not," Zorro said, raising his sword. Blood from his shoulder fell in slow drops to splatter wetly on the ground, but he gave no sign that he noticed this.
The alcalde whipped his sword from his scabbard and leapt at him.
"You have made a grave mistake, Zorro. I don't know how you survived our last encounter, but this is one time where you will not be escaping."
"Oh I had no plans to be leaving the party so early," Zorro said, ducking beneath a wild swing. "I would never treat your hospitality so lightly."
The alcalde snapped his mouth shut in a grim line and began a series of overhead blows to Zorro's side that forced him to use the muscles of his right side and shoulder. Zorro met each blow, but with none of his usual grace nor repartee. Neither did he move with his accustomed speed, simply meeting all of de Soto's attacks as they came and making none of his own.
De Soto lunged forward just a bit too strongly. Zorro took a neat step to the side and de Soto, finding no resistance to his charge, stumbled forward just a bit. He recovered quickly, slashing to the side. Zorro intercepted the blow, but his arm faltered and only a quick twist of his body prevented him from being impaled.
Triumph blossomed on de Soto's face. "You are injured. The bandit was right. You are a fool."
Zorro just flipped his sword to the other hand and raised it into a classic pose. "Did you wish to dance or is it talking you are after?"
De Soto growled and threw himself into the fight again, but this time Zorro more than met his challenge. Alejandro watched in near amazement as Zorro traded blows with something closer to his accustomed ease. He'd heard of men who could fight with either hand, but he'd never witnessed anything like this.
Something darkened on Zorro's face and the pace of his blade picked up. De Soto, stepping backward to avoid a sudden reversal of a parry, caught his boot on a rough patch of ground and fell.
Zorro stepped forward and pressed his blade to his throat.
"Don't," de Soto cried, throwing his hands up.
"If I have not killed you yet, I am hardly likely to do so now" Zorro said.
No one spoke. An almost eerie quiet descended upon the square. No one had ever heard Zorro be quite this direct before.
"The people of Los Angeles are under my protection," Zorro said, pressing forward just a bit. "They are, truly, under your protection as well, but you seem to have forgotten that, Senor Alcalde. I hope this will serve as a reminder."
With that he carved his famous Z into the alcalde's uniform.
"As of now, martial law is over and the higher level of taxes has been rescinded," Zorro said. When de Soto didn't respond, he pressed his sword back against the alcalde's throat.
"Yes, yes."
Zorro nodded. "You have such a reputation for being difficult, alcalde, but I have always found you such a reasonable man. A lesson in the evils of gossip, I am sure." He whistled sharply and a familiar black shape leapt over the soldiers blocking the exit to the square.
Zorro sheathed his sword and pulled himself into the saddle. No one made any move to stop him, not even de Soto, who still lay there on the ground.
Zorro untied two heavy bags from his saddle and tossed one and then the other to land at Alejandro's feet.
"These are the proceeds from the recent rise in taxes," Zorro said, circling Toronado to face the crowd of assembled people. "The alcalde has generously offered to refund them to you."
Zorro turned in the saddle to look down on Alejandro.
"Don Alejandro, I trust that you will see that the money is returned to the appropriate people?"
Alejandro nodded once.
At that Toronado reared up and Zorro brought his sword up in a classic salute to the people in the pueblo.
"Until later then, my friends." Zorro pressed his heels into Toronado's flanks and the horse leapt forward, easily clearing the line of soldiers blocking the road out of town. A few of the soldiers, seeing that Zorro was really escaping after all, raised their guns and fired after him, but the dark figure on the horse receded quickly out of range.
"Amazing." Ciro Esperanza again. Alejandro, watching as Zorro's shape in the distance grew even smaller, had rather a different word for it.
He turned to find Felipe staring at him. Their eyes met for a moment in perfect understanding.
"You know where he is going," Alejandro said lowly. Felipe looked slightly trapped but nodded, his shoulders sagging in something that looked very much like relief.
Victoria was still staring at the rose in her hand, seemingly unaware of the exchange that had occurred just a few feet beside her.
"Victoria," Alejandro said. She looked up, reality snapping back into her large eyes.
"I do not like having left Diego for this long, not after Domingo's appearance today."
"Yes, yes of course. Go, please, Alejandro. I am safe here."
Some part of Alejandro had a difficult time in leaving a woman alone and undefended after such a scene, but Victoria would not thank him for the thought and she was truly in no danger here in the town.
Felipe was already leading the horses through the crowd.
"Stay with Victoria," Alejandro said to Miguel, who'd accompanied them into town. "Take her back to the hacienda whenever she is ready."
He barely waited for Miguel to nod before he was away, pushing his horse through the crowd.
When they reached the road he gestured for Felipe to lead.
