Author's note: The success of even the simplest plan depends on many factors...

Chapter 9. Errors of the Heart

The hours until dusk seemed to drag on forever. Don Alejandro and Victoria sat side by side, silently staring at the window, and listening to the sounds coming from the square and the interior of the inn. Right at that time, they had nothing to talk about and could do nothing but wait.

It was that simple. Tell Pilar that more corn soup has to be cooked so that the supplies are not wasted when there are no guests. Give the soldiers the extra soup, making sure to stealthily pour the contents of the bottle that Felipe brought into the pot...

The sleeping drug was one of Zorro's inventions. Felipe was sure that it would be enough to put the whole unit to sleep, and that no one would prevent him from entering the garrison and freeing Diego. By the time the colonel and his lancers were to wake up, the de la Vegs could disappear from Los Angeles, heading for Santa Barbara. They would then return when the royal envoy will have given up his search.

The sun had gone down and it was dark outside. The soldiers should already be sitting down to eat. They had heard them take a pot of soup from the kitchen for dinner in the barracks.

The thud on the stairs made Victoria jump to her feet in surprise. Before she or don Alejandro said a word, the door opened, and two of Risendo's men entered the room, heading towards her. She backed away, but at the same moment, a third soldier appeared on the threshold.

"Doña de la Vega, colonel Risendo wants to talk to you," he said.

Victoria looked at him terrified. If Risendo wanted to speak to her, the plan had failed. It meant that they had just missed their last chance to save Diego. Don Alejandro must have understood it too, for he paled suddenly, but he controlled himself and touched her shoulder.

"Go," he said softly. "Maybe he'll let you talk to Diego."

She agreed with a barely perceptible nod of her head, and headed for the door. She did not discuss why Risendo had waited until the night to call her. The only thing that mattered was finding out what he wanted from her now. And why hers and Felipe's plan, so carefully put in place, had failed.

"You are not helping your husband, doña de la Vega." The Colonel rose to greet her from behind the desk.

Victoria saw a bowl of soup on the counter. The food looked untouched, and for a moment, she felt a rush of wild hope. Perhaps her fear that the plan had failed was premature. Whatever the colonel wanted to talk to her about, he hadn't had dinner yet. Perhaps his soldiers did not do it either ...

"What do you mean? She replied with a cautious question.

"Don't pretend you don't know!" He slammed his hand on the table top and Victoria froze, realizing that the hope was deceptive after all. "Poison? You were trying to poison me, doña?"

She didn't answer. Risendo walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders.

"Which one of you came up with that idea, doña? Who shall I hang tomorrow for poisoning the royal soldiers?" He hissed straight in her face.

Victoria struggled in panic. For a moment, in the candlelight, she saw someone else in front of her. For a moment, a smiling Rodrigo Monsangre held her by the shoulders. She broke free and slammed her back against the door, regaining consciousness. It wasn't the captain who stood in front of her, but someone immeasurably more formidable than him.

Someone who would kill Diego tomorrow because she had failed.

"How did you poison my people?" The envoy asked again.

"I didn't!"

"Really? Two ate your soup! They are both unconscious now! If they die, I swear that tomorrow I will burn you and the rest of the inn, poisoner! Everyone in there and whoever protests!"

Victoria's heart leapt into her throat. The plan failed because she did not anticipate that some of the soldiers would eat earlier than others.

"They'll wake up in the morning!" She whispered, broken. "I didn't poison anyone! You were just supposed to fall asleep..."

Risendo stepped back and leaned against the desk.

"Fall asleep and let your husband run away, right, doña ?" He asked in an unexpectedly gentle tone.

She nodded silently, unable to speak. Knowing that she had lost made her barely stay on her feet. Diego, oh Diego! He was only a few steps away from her, just there inside the jail, and she had failed him.

"I said you weren't helping your husband, doña," Risendo repeated, still calmly.

She looked at him, not understanding what he was talking about. After all, he sentenced Diego. He arrested him, imprisoned him, and had the scaffold erected. How else could she help but try to free him? What else could she do?

Or maybe… maybe… it dawned on her suddenly, terrified, that the emissary wanted to ask her a question similar to the one Monsangre had asked her. That he wanted her to agree to stay in the garrison? With him… This time, however, not to protect the children, but to buy Diego's life. If so… She closed her eyes for a moment, looking for an answer to see if she had enough strength for it. Not only for that night so as not to run away, but then to meet Diego's eyes.

She did not find it. She couldn't imagine herself standing in front of Diego and telling him at what cost she had saved his life. She couldn't even think how guilty he would feel about such a decision.

As she opened her eyes, Risendo was still watching her, intently as if judging.

"What do you mean?" She asked finally.

The colonel shrugged.

"I know what an accomplished swordsman your husband is," he said. "Your father-in-law has already accused me of saying that it is not enough to prove that he is Zorro. But when I see how much you want to save him…" He smiled slightly. "Don Alejandro I understand, after all, it's about his son's life, but you? Someone might ask why you are defending him so much? Have you done what you did for the man who has agreed to give you his name after the disgrace that has befallen you? Or rather for the lover you have spent years waiting for and now finally found an excuse to marry?"

Victoria's legs buckled underneath her as she realized the magnitude of her mistake. So this man had no evidence against Diego! There had been a chance that he would let him go, and she had ruined it with her untimely rescue idea. After all, it was obvious to everyone in the pueblo that she was Zorro's beloved, faithfully waiting for him to be able to take off his mask. That only what happened to her at the hands of Monsangre and de Soto made her decide to marry Diego. But now she unconsciously confirmed that, for her, it was still the same man...

"I see you've understood, doña," the emissary said after a long moment. "You gave me the proof I needed. Now, tell me one thing! Did you really count on being able to put the entire garrison to sleep and get your husband out of custody?

"Yes," she admitted, defeated, terrified. She had failed Diego; she had betrayed Zorro.

"You know I should lock you in a cell now after something like that? Next to your husband? And tomorrow to carry out not one, but two executions? Because you just admitted not only to trying to put the soldiers to sleep, but also that you are an accomplice of this Zorro?"

Victoria suddenly straightened.

"Do it," she said calmly. This man had just shown her a way not to lose Diego. If he fulfilled his threat, they would be together to the end, and maybe even more. Don Alejandro might have threatened her once that she was preparing herself to die in agony, but if she died now, it would not be by her own hand. She would not be separated from her husband.

Risendo shook his head.

"No tears?" He asked. "No begging? Are you just agreeing to hang? You're crazy, doña!"

"Maybe," she replied. "Maybe I'm crazy after what happened to me here."

He stepped closer again, blocking the candlelight, and Victoria felt her throat tighten. She forced herself to breathe calmly, but felt her palms dampen. The dark figure was about to press her against the wall...

The man stepped back.

"No, doña," he said.

"N-no?" She didn't understand him.

"I am not going to deprive don Alejandro of the de la Vega heir."

For a moment, Victoria felt as if her heart would pop out of her chest. Diego was the heir of the de la Vegs. Has she just heard that he would be pardoned?

"Señor..." she began, but Risendo interrupted her with a gesture of his hand.

"I said the heir." He pointed at her belly. "I don't know who can confirm if you are pregnant, so you will be safe from me."

She understood, and her eyes darkened.

In the dim light of the room, someone was holding her. Someone was bending over her. She felt a sudden chilling touch on her lips as this someone put a glass to her mouth. She struggled to free herself from the hands holding her, and fell.

The shock caused her to return to her senses. She was in the alcalde's former office. She was lying on the floor by the desk, and the royal emissary knelt beside her, watching her closely.

"Sit down, doña," he said, rising and pointing to the pushed-back chair. "Would you like a sip of brandy?"

She shook her head. All she wanted now was to be with Diego. Embrace him and cuddle up in his arms. Hear his voice, even if his calmness was nothing but pretense. For a moment she could even forget that she had failed and betrayed him once again.

She struggled to get up from the floor, and sat down. Risendo also took a seat on the other side of the desk. He still didn't take his eyes off of her.

The silence dragged on until Victoria could not stand it.

"I'm not pregnant," she said.

"You want to die so much?" He replied with a question.

She was silent, avoiding glancing at the man. She hoped she wouldn't cry in front of him.

"You will answer a few questions for me now, doña," the envoy said again. "Be honest with me, and I will let you go into the prison and talk to your husband for a while."

"Ask away!" Victoria raised her head.

"You agreed to stay here with Monsangre, didn't you?"

"I did."

"I have already been told that you were then given a choice. That it was either you or the children from the Mission's school. The ones your padre showed me. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"This de Soto called you a harlot afterward, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Publicly accusing you of immorality?"

"Yes."

"Do you know why he did that?"

"I do not know."

"Your husband witnessed that?"

"What?"

"The accusations. What you were called."

"Yes. He…"

"This de Soto. He witnessed what Monsangre asked you?" Risendo interrupted her.

Victoria had shuddered when she realized that she had been nothing but a toy, not only to those foreign soldiers, but also to someone she knew, and for whom she felt a sincere aversion and disgust after that evening in the garrison.

"Yes."

"He didn't protest?"

"No."

Risendo leaned back in the chair.

"How many took you here?" He asked.

Victoria paled.

"No... I don't remember."

"Don't lie to me!"

"I don't remember! They got me drunk before... All I know is de Soto was among them. And only because Monsangre later talked about it." She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment, but she had to tell him. If this was to be the price of seeing Diego...

Risendo tilted his head to the side, still staring at her.

"Who got you drunk?"

"I do not know. One of the soldiers. He was sitting in this place, there at the table!" She pointed.

"You said Monsangre talked about that night after that. Was it when he came the second time?"

"Yes."

"De Soto was with him then, too?"

"Yes."

"Your husband heard that?"

"No."

"But he knew, didn't he? From whom?"

"I... I told him about it when... when I got home."

She had had enough of these questions; had had enough of this line of questioning. But the man behind the desk didn't budge, so she had to wait.

"Are you sure you are not pregnant? After that night?"

"I am! I wouldn't have returned to the pueblo if I was!"

"And you probably wouldn't have married don Diego?"

"I wouldn't have agreed to get married!"

"Really?"

"No! Never! I would have never done that to Diego!"

"And don Diego... He wouldn't have insisted on getting married? Even if you were to have this de Soto's child?"

"I'm not carrying his baby!" She clenched her fists, trying to contain the nausea. Not only at the thought that she might be expecting a baby after that night, but that the alcalde might be his father.

The emissary leaned toward her.

"You seem very confident," he said. "You want me to believe you didn't make an effort to find a husband after all that? That you did not take advantage of the de la Vega friendship so as not to have to give birth to a bastard?"

"I preferred to die!" She fired off and froze, realizing what she had confessed to.

Risendo leaned back again.

"Die, you say..." he said softly, with some strange thought. "Were you then looking for death?" He asked.

"If you want to know so much," Victoria looked directly at the man, "I was only a step away from hanging."

"I understand this is a metaphor of your aversion to life at the time, doña. Because now you are also one step away from the scaffold."

"No, señor. I had already put a noose around my neck. I only had to take a step."

For a moment she thought the man shuddered. Disbelief, amazement, sudden understanding. In the dim candlelight, she couldn't be sure what she saw in his face.

He recovered almost immediately.

"Did you step back?" He asked, strangely gentle.

"No. I was stopped." She preferred not to mention Zorro's name.

The colonel was looking at her thoughtfully again, carefully.

"You didn't want to be the mother of a bastard so much?" He asked finally. "Or was it rather because you betrayed Zorro, as you have done now..." He smiled.

Victoria huddled in her chair, seeing how venomous that smile was. But that was only a moment. She immediately forced herself to raise her head. Even if the envoy had guessed what had led her to those trees, she didn't need to confirm it. She had already admitted to too many things.

"Do you really want me to answer you?" She asked bitterly.

Risendo's mocking smile faded away as if blown away. That strange expression of neither sadness nor concern replaced it again, and the man looked away, as if ashamed. He rose from behind the desk.

"Thank you, doña, for the honesty of your answer," he said softly, again in that unusual, gentle tone.

"I will not be grateful to you. Victoria looked at the bowl of soup already cold on the table, a testimony of her defeat.

The colonel noticed the look.

"Don't be deceived, doña. I'm not going to eat it, and my people have already thrown away whatever was brought to them. As I told you, maybe you already carry the de la Vega heir, and I should not leave you unattended, so I have reason to spare you and your father-in-law. So, please appreciate that I will take you to your husband right away so that you can talk for a moment. You will spend the rest of the night under guard. You will also get a moment to say goodbye to each other tomorrow.

"No..." Victoria did not know whether she was protesting at the words about tomorrow's farewell to Diego, or at the promise that she would be spared.

"Appreciate it!" He growled. "And so I do you grace. If I were to stick to the law, not only would you all be in custody. Royal law recently prescribes a garrotte! And the king himself likes it when criminals are torn apart by their horses! Do you want me to change orders?"

Victoria backed away as if struck, staring at the man in horror. She had scarcely heard the rumors of this terrible method of execution, but it was enough. The thought that Diego would die in such a horrible way paralyzed her.

The emissary smiled slightly, even reassuringly.

"Don't be afraid! I will not give such an order," he said gently. "It will be a fair sentence, not some barbaric show. My people are also very skilled, so I can assure you that tomorrow everything will end without too much suffering for your husband. Do you understand?"

She just bowed her head.

"Yes, señor," she whispered, broken.

"That's good. Go to him now!" He walked around the desk and helped her to her feet.

TBC.