Chapter 17
Gnnnn... what was that? Hmph... what the...?
Diego confusedly felt that something was repeatedly nudging his knee.
A dog nuzzling him? His mare Esperanza claiming some petting or a bit of attention? Or was it Tornado?
Grrrr... Whatever it was, this was becoming insistent. Had Felipe not taken care of Tornado?
This thought seemed to awaken something in his dozing mind... Tornado...? No. No… So what...?
Felipe!
Of course, Felipe!
Diego finally opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times to get used to the light, though he had his back to the window, and after a second to focus his eyesight, he made out an anxious face in front of him, an arm reaching to him, and attached to this arm, a white hand that was rather vigorously shaking his knee.
He started: everything came back to his mind.
Awake! She was awake! Finally!
He opened his mouth to speak to her – to enquire about her condition, ask her name, ask her to tell him her story, he didn't know exactly what he was going to say – when in a low and raspy voice, she got ahead of him:
"Ah, well, about time!" she exclaimed somewhat laboriously.
Not understanding immediately what she meant, Diego remained dumbfounded for a moment. She then went on:
"Do you know for how…"
She paused to clear her throat, she seemed to be hoarse and had trouble controlling this voice that, after a last scream somewhere by the side of the Camino Real, had not been used for two whole days.
"...how long I've been trying to wake you up?" she finished.
Diego couldn't help but note the unintentional irony of her comment, given the circumstances. He finally gathered his wits to answer her tit for tat:
"I could say as much about you, Señorita!"
She looked around, discovering again the room she was in.
"What's this place, Señor? Señor...? "
Realising that she didn't even know how to call this man she paused, voluntarily putting a very obvious question mark in her voice.
"De la Vega," Diego provided, immediately understanding her unspoken query. "If you're wondering about this particular room, right now we are in one of the bedrooms of this pueblo's tavern. But as your question probably refers more generally to the pueblo itself, well, you're here in Los Ángeles."
He paused to let her absorb these bits of information, which she appeared to be doing thoughtfully.
"Los Ángeles …" she repeated in an undertone to herself, frowning and looking pensive.
This was all well and good, but Diego had only one thought in mind: Felipe. What exactly did this woman remember? What would she be able to relate and report to de Soto? And when would she be able to do so?
"Señorita..." Diego then resumed speaking, not knowing how to bring the subject without appearing to be either too rude or too insensitive, "how are you feeling? You gave us quite a fright!"
"I..." she closed her eyes as if to shut out or at least dim the bright morning light. "Hurts..." she went on. "My shoulder hurts. And my leg. My head a little too. A bit tired."
She was speaking in snippets of sentence. Her mind seemed to be having some trouble stringing two or three coherent thoughts together.
"Allow me..." Diego said while placing his hand on the young woman's forehead without waiting for said permission to do so.
Her fever seemed to have faded out.
"You've been unconscious for quite some time," he explained apologetically as if to justify such an incongruous familiarity. "You were delirious, feverish, we were unable to wake you up. We were worried about you."
And not just about you, he thought, keeping it to himself.
"I…" the woman began, then she paused.
Suddenly, as if completely awakened by an idea that Diego didn't immediately get, she quickly sat bolt upright in her bed, and then with a sudden movement she folded her blankets down to below her knees. Decency would have demanded that Diego should turn or at least look away, but the quickness of her gesture didn't give him time to do so.
The young woman looked at her right thigh, or rather stared at the wound spread across it.
"I've been stung by a scorpion," she remembered, her eyes fixed on the reddish mark that contrasted so much with the white of her skin in this very intimate area.
"I know," Diego replied, filled with awakening hope when he noted that her memory seemed to come back to her mind and to confirm Felipe's account. "Rest assured, your body seems to have fought the venom quite well, and infection seems to be now contained and in check."
"Had my thigh not been lacerated, there wouldn't be any infection at all," she grumbled.
Philistine! Diego sighed inwardly. Doesn't she realise Felipe may have saved her life? He kept his thoughts to himself: it would be no use antagonising her, quite the contrary. He needed her to recover her complete memory about the events, and to get Felipe out of jail as soon as possible.
"I'm glad you're getting better, Señorita. Señorita...?" he asked, turning to herself the unspoken question she had aimed at him just a minute earlier.
"Oh, yes, please forgive me, the unusual circumstances make me forget about the most common courtesy," the young woman realised. "That's unforgivable of me; really, where are my manners!"
She then introduced herself, politely bowing her head in some sort of upper-body curtsey :
"Luz Alacen," she stated. "I am grateful, Señor de la Vega, for the good care you apparently kindly took of me while I was unconscious."
"Don't mention it, Señorita, that's only natural," Diego said, bending to pick up his book that had fallen to the floor while he was dozing.
He saw señorita Alacen squint at it, trying to decipher its title. Elementos de Orictognosia, by Andrés Manuel del Rio. Typically the kind of reading everyone around here considered pointless and boring, Diego sighed inwardly. Well, at least for those who had any idea what this book was dealing with, that is!
"An interest in mineralogy?" he then heard señorita Alacen ask him.
He looked up at her in surprise. To his utter amazement, nodding toward the book she went on:
"It's not anymore what's most exhaustive on the subject, according to what I've heard; but still, it is said to be an excellent book, a reference work, or so I've been told…"
Diego stared at her, dumbfounded, but he quickly recovered. Whatever, after all. What mattered was her testimony. What mattered was first and foremost to exonerate Felipe and clear his name.
"Señorita Alacen, please be kind enough to forgive me if I appear a bit abrupt to you, but can you tell me exactly what you recall of the events that occurred just before you fainted?"
"I..." she answered a little surprised, "…to tell you the truth I had hoped myself that you would be able to tell me how I got to this tavern, which, needless to say, is hardly the kind of establishment I usually patronise."
Diego then felt obliged to stand up for the tavern's reputation, and more particularly for its landlady's through it:
"I can assure you, Señorita, that this establishment is most respectable. It is as much an inn for passing travellers, such as yourself Señorita, as a tavern for us Los Ángelinos seeking a good meal or a refreshment. And there is no other hostelry in the pueblo, nor any other inn where to eat."
Señorita Alacen vaguely felt that her reservations about the reputation of such establishments had somehow hurt her Good Samaritan, and she wondered why. Was this tavern his? Perhaps, after all, as this was where he had watched over her. However, this man had more the appearance, language, diction – and the name! – of a caballero than of a tavern manager.
"Please forgive me if my words hurt you, Señor, I beg you to believe I didn't intend to, far from it. And I should not prejudge what I don't know, this is not a sensible and serious mode of reasoning, one that would be worthy of the name."
"It's already forgotten, don't worry," Diego replied. "And to answer your question, you have indeed been stung by a scorpion while you were riding along the Camino Real, not far from Los Ángeles. You've been brought to the pueblo to get you examined and tended to by our doctor; and since he prescribed rest but opposed to any new journey, albeit short, in view of your weakened condition, we've settled you in the tavern's quietest room. Does this answer your questions?"
Luz nodded.
"Excellent!" Diego said. "Now, again forgive me but I must insist, Señorita: I really need you to tell me your last recollections of the incident..."
The Señorita frowned and then stared into space, seemingly searching her mind.