Los Angeles had been, for a long time, a prosperous pueblo, despite its rather reduced size. Its inhabitants were, for the most part, farmers living either on the outskirts of the village or several miles away, on land they rented from the big haciendados who had first settled the territory. They led simple, modest lives, working the land and selling their surplus to make a living.

For the three decades that followed the saddling of the territory by the first 44 colonists, they and their descendants prospered, the new generations building on the foundations laid by the first.

Yet, by 1814, it seemed like the forces of evil had gathered against the good people calling themselves Los Angelinos. What was once a simple, yet rather content life, had turned into a struggle for their own survival, and many were losing the battle.

It had all started with a certain Luis Ramone, who had been named alcalde in early 1811, just a few months after the Mexican Revolution began in the south.

The man was evil and cruel, having his men execute several of the farmers and even one of the caballeros who had dared defy him. Under his rule, the once prosperous pueblo started devolving, and the people started leaving the territory, chased away by the official's taxes and harsh treatment of the colonists.

When the man perished, prey to some bandits, shortly after returning from the Devil's Fortress, in June 1813, nobody mourned at his tomb. In fact, most people believed their lives would finally change for the better. And, for a while, Sergeant Mendoza, Ramone's former right hand, led the pueblo. Yet, despite having joined the army since he was but 16, the lancer, who preferred spending time in the tavern to instructing the lancers or going on patrols, had never actually learned much about managing a pueblo, nor was he the fearless leader he sometimes imagined himself to be.

Thus, while there were no more abuses and extra taxes, bandits prospered, and several of the peasants lost all they had to them during his time in office.

It was why, when news came that Madrid had sent a new alcalde, the Los Angelinos allowed themselves to believe that things might finally take a turn for the better. Their expectations, however, were dashed when the new alcalde, who arrived in November of that same year, turned out to be Ignacio de Soto, a white-haired ambitious man in his early 30s with a burn scar on his neck only partially covered by his white beard. The new alcalde had made it his purpose to bring the pueblo to its knees and use his time there to enrich himself, so that he might then return in glory to Madrid, where, in his own words "the world would be his oyster".

Ignacio had not done anything in particular to gain the position he had in Los Angeles. In fact, he hadn't even deserved it. Instead, the reason for his appointment as alcalde had more to do with a grudge his former commander, Colonel Gilberto Risendo, held against one of the pueblo's caballeros. Thus, among other tasks he had been asked to perform, ensuring the destruction of a certain Don Alejandro de la Vega was the most prominent on De Soto's agenda.

Gilberto Risendo, himself, was to join him not long after his arrival. The younger man, however, ended up postponing his departure from Spain at hearing the rumors about Ferdinand's imminent return to the throne, hoping he might have the chance to ingratiate himself to the new king. Rather charismatic and quite a brave soldier benefiting from the support of one of Ferdinand's most trusted men, he didn't take long to convince the king of his usefulness. Consequently, he was soon appointed Special Emissary due to collect money from the people in the most distant colonies, including Alta California, a mission on which he embarked in early March of 1814.

ZZZ

In the meantime, De Soto had started with finding out all he could about the pueblo's caballeros. And, while going through all of Ramone's documents and secret hideouts, he found the one thing he needed to ensure the downfall of the caballero he had been sent there to destroy.

Not more than a week after taking over as alcalde, De Soto requested that all the caballeros produce the land grants giving them the right to their properties. The dons, thus, made the long journey south to the Devil's Fortress. La Fortaleza, besides being the best-guarded prison in that part of New Spain, was also the place where the most important official deeds were being kept, safe from Indian attacks and from thieves who might try to steal them.

And, just as they had been certain, the dons found the deeds there, intact, in the prison's vaults. All but one: the deed to the De la Vega Hacienda – the biggest and richest in the territory – was missing.

Its owner, Don Alejandro, thus found himself forced to use the money he had in the banks, as well as some he had had to borrow, just to keep the land and the house that were rightfully his by paying the alcalde's price for them. That, in turn, forced him to eventually sell part of his land so that he might keep afloat.

That first blow the haciendado had suffered, was followed by a second one in the spring of 1814, when, after returning home from a cattle drive, he found out that the cellar where he kept his wine had been broken into one night and all the wine destroyed.

He clenched his fists at the news, asked his men to repair the barrels that could be repaired, and to buy replacements for the ones that were beyond repair, then to reinforce the cellar doors, and, after studying his papers, he decided the time had come for him to part with some of his animals. He started with a few good horses, whose sale allowed him to pay some of the debts he had incurred, as well as his people.

Then, for a while, it almost seemed like things were finally looking up until, one day in early July, Mendoza came to the tavern, bringing the mail from Spain. De Soto happened to wander in at the precise moment Don Alejandro opened what looked like an old letter that had, without a doubt, spent a long time on the way from Europe since part of the writing, as well as the information about the sender was erased by water.

Opening it, he noticed it was in French and, doing his best to remember the language he had not spoken in over twenty years, he started reading.

"Is it from Diego?" Victoria Escalante hurried to his side as he noticed the letter.

Don Alejandro slowly shook his head, then closed his eyes for a moment, leaving the paper to fall on the table in front of him and resting his face on his hands.

"Who is it from?" the young woman asked, then took a step back at noticing the old man was, in fact, crying. "Don Alejandro?" she asked as she took the envelope and glanced to see it had been sent from France, the exact address destroyed by water. Next, she took the letter and started reading it, as well.

"I… I don't understand what it says here, Don Alejandro," she muttered as she tried to read it yet, glancing at it she did find the name of the man she loved as well as the word "mort," a word too similar to its Spanish counterpart for her not to understand. "Dead? Diego is… dead?" she asked with a trembling voice as she, herself burst into tears. Sitting down, for her knees had suddenly turned to mush, she reached to embrace the old man.

ZZZ

The following day, Don Alejandro headed to Capistrano, together with Victoria, and had a padre there to do a service for his son, to ask God that, should the news prove false, Diego would return soon, and, should it prove true, have mercy on his boy's soul.

De Soto, himself, seemed rather gloomy on the day the news of the young caballero's demise reached him. Part of him had always known that what he had done in university had been wrong. Part of him had always known Diego had not meant for him to be kicked out. That, however, did not stop him from blaming the young De la Vega and Emmanuel Dos Santos for his misfortunes, nor wish to take his own revenge on them, certain they deserved to feel as much misery as he had when he was kicked out of the university.

When meeting Gilberto, he took quite some pleasure in bad-mouthing the young De la Vega, inventing an entire conspiracy by the young man as the reason why he had had to leave the University of Madrid in shame. It was a self-defense mechanism in a way but, as a consequence, Gilberto never tried to truly know Diego because he had believed Ignacio's words.

Later, when the opportunity presented itself, De Soto also amused himself by coming up with the idea to have him arrested in order to take revenge on him, certain he'd be expelled were it to come out that he had spent several days in jail; and, if not for that, for having been out of the campus for over a week, missing all classes in that time. It should have been enough, and he would have been satisfied.

He had never truly meant for his former colleague to either end up in Chateau D'If, nor for him to die there. All he wanted was to see him expelled, out in the street, humiliated and fearful. Despite the written testimony accusing him, De Soto never expected would serve to convict the young man to prison.

He was deprived even of the satisfaction of witnessing Diego's demise when Gilberto's platoon, including him, had been sent to Barcelona to help the French fight the insurgents.

He had been part of the firing squads who killed the Spanish rebels, men and women, young and old alike. He had no pity or mercy on the ones he shot and, in one case, he even burned down the dead man's house, due to a different, personal vendetta. Seeing how it was some of those rebels who had caused the fire that had given him his scar, he certainly did not regret his actions.

In all the time he had spent away from Madrid, his one regret was not having been there to witness Diego's humiliation, never once in all that time even imagining the young man had been sent to Chateau D'If. And, when he found out about the young man's fate, Gilberto explained to him that Diego had turned out to really be a rebel, for which reason he merited his sentence. Ignacio never actually believed the man's words, yet he also never tried to do anything to help the young caballero.

Now, with the news of Diego's demise, part of him felt guilty. The other part of him, however, felt a strange sense of triumph.