Chapter 9

Three weeks after graduating, Ignacio became junior adviser to Mayor Garcia and so began his political career. Garcia was a small portly man in his late forties and he had an instinct about people, he knew how to use them to his own advantage but he did it in a way that they never realised they were being used. When he met his newest staff member, he immediately saw a highly ambitious and intellegent man, who would do anything to get what he craved for, power, and he was willing to help De Soto as long he helped him in return.

Ignacio saw this chance as another stepping stone to what he wanted. He wanted a posting of his own, to rule over people, to make people see that he was someone to take notice of, that he was no longer a no-body. In no time at all, Ignacio settled into his new position, he learnt how to manage a small bureaucracy. He was amazed at the amount of paperwork that was needed to run their province but he quickly became efficient and dealt with the mountain of paperwork. He attended the monthly public meetings that were held so that the citizens of the area could air their grievances, which he found to his amazement, were many and varied.

He began to realise that the citizens complained about almost anything. Occasionally some quarrels became violent between the participants, which had to be resolved by time spent in the prison cells, while some disputes where simply absurd. One particular incident involved a group of pigs that kept getting into a neighbour's small vegetable garden and instead of building a better fence around the garden, it had escalated into tit for tat revenge, which had ended in the killing of the pigs by the owner of the garden. Now the pig farmer was seeking compensation for the lost of his stock.

After much shouting and finger pointing between the two aggrieved parties, Garcia settled the matter by making the pig farmer build his neighbour a stronger fence while the other farmer had to buy new pigs for his neighbour. Both men grumbled but in the end they agreed and so life settled down once more.

Ignacio saw how Garcia handled all the situations, he was firm and confident, but accepted no arguments and threatened on several occasions to imprison unruly citizens. He promised he would look into all the matters and the people seemed content that they had voiced their opinions to their local official. Many of the issues weren't even looked into and Ignacio noticed that the majority of the people soon forgot what they were questioning and never followed up with their mayor.

The disputes that had to be looked into were passed to Ignacio to handle. The disputes ranged from neighbours arguing over fences and boundaries, to building permits and tax collections. Ignacio found to his surprise that many people were willing to pay 'a fee' to have a dispute settled in their favour. At first he was wary of accepting this fee, simply because he didn't want to compromise his reputation with such things but he soon came to understand that it was expected for a junior official to accept a small 'administration fee' to resolve any and all conflicts. It had been the way for many generations, back to the time of the ancient Romans, when they received tributes from their provinces in Spain and elsewhere within the Roman Empire.

So Ignacio played the game, took the fees and soon his funds grew into a healthy balance. He had never thought about money just for the sake of it but had looked at wealth as a way of getting power and authority. For wealth bought its own power.

He recalled what Carolina had advised him before he took up his studies. She advised him to invest some of the scholarship funds as a future nest egg and to use the money wisely and only when he absolutely needed to. So he had lived frugally, except on his clothes, he bought only the best cloth for his suits and invested almost one quarter of his living expenses into shares of an ammunition factory. It was one area that he knew well and to his great surprise his investment had doubled in the first year alone.

So by the time of his posting to Guadalajara, he had a healthy bank balance and with the 'fees' increased his wealth to a point that he was considering another form of investment. Land.

It was during a dinner party hosted by Garcia and his wife, for their staff, that the subject of land ownership came around. "de Soto, your family originally came from El Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz and had their own land?"

Ignacio nodded warily. "Si, my paternal grandfather had land in that area." he didn't like to talk about his family's misfortunes.

"And wasn't it lost to the Castillo family due to gambling?" Garcia continued.

"Si, what is this about sir?"

Garcia chuckled. "Well by a strange coincidence the Castillo family is looking to sell off part of their lands to pay for gambling debts of their own."

Ignacio raise an eyebrow in surprise and his heart pounded as an idea took hold in his mind. "Are you serious sir?"

Garcia nodded. "Si and from what I hear, they are offering less than what the land is actually worth. If you are interested in getting back your family land, I would suggest you make some enquiries. You could probably demand your own price and get it."

Ignacio's quick mind understood the quirk of fate, that if he, Ignacio de Soto could regain the land that his grandfather Santos had lost to the Castillo family, by buying land back from the Castillo family due to their own gambling debts. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. "Gracias sir, I think I will look into it."

Garcia nodded and smiled. "Good, good. A gentleman with political aspirations should be a landowner."

Ignacio decided to find out more about this land that Castillo was putting up for sale and hired an agent, Samuel Lopez, who had not only farming experience to know if the land was good but he also had a reputation for being a crafty businessman, who would get the best deal for him.

The report that Lopez gave Ignacio was encouraging, the land was fertile and with good water supply from the river that ran through it and to his amazement the parcel of land that they were selling off included the old De Soto farm. The only issue that Lopez could find was that the old hacienda was in need of restoration but other than that, there was no reason not to purchase the land and it was what he recommended.

Ignacio laughed with glee as he read Lopez's report. He decided to go ahead and ordered Lopez to begin negotiations on his behalf. The negotiations took a month to complete but in the end he was very pleased with the outcome, not only did he get the land at a very good price but he had more than doubled the size of the original De Soto farm. He had done what his father couldn't do, he had restored the de Soto fortunes. He, Ignacio de Soto Morales, was now a landowner.

Ignacio was so pleased with Lopez's work, he decided to hire Lopez as his estate manager, to run the farm as he saw fit, he knew no-one better qualified to look after his interests. He did not even consider his own family for the position. His father had died two years prior and his brother Tomos had taken over the tenant farm with his wife and their growing brood of children, their mother stayed with them. His sister had married a merchant sea captain and lived her own life.

Lopez was thrilled by the appointment, he was of farming stock and knew that being the manager of the de Soto estate he would gain advantage of being connected with the increasingly influential man. He had no desires to go in the same political direction as his employer but he had dreams of owning his own farm and he believed that this was the way forward for him. He also knew that he would not be able to cheat his employer for he didn't want to think what de Soto would do to him, if he found him cheating. de Soto would make a formidably enemy.