“Silence, or you will die like a rat, Excellency,” he whispered.
He touched the tip of his sword to the chest of Le Chevalier, who sat up as far as the sword would allow and nodded that he had understood.
In a whisper, Diego laid out what he wanted.
“You give me too much credit. If I order those hostages to be released, the com andante of the plaza will take others tomorrow,” Le Chevalier answered in the same low tone.
“It would be a pity if that should occur. Your daughter Agnes is very precious, and we do not want to hurt her, but as Your Excellency knows, many innocents die in a war,” said Diego.
He put his hand to his silk jacket, pulled out the lace handkerchief Bernardo had retrieved, and waved it in the face of Le Chevalier; though he could not see his daughter’s embroidered name in the pale light, her father had no difficulty recognizing it from the unmistakable scent of violets.
“I suggest that you not summon your guards, Excellency, because at this moment my men are already in your daughter’s room. If anything happens to me, you will not see her alive again. They will leave only when I give the signal,” Diego said in the most amiable tone in the world, sniffing the handkerchief and stuffing it back into his jacket.
“You may escape with your life tonight,” Le Chevalier growled, “but we will track you down, and then you will regret you were ever born. We know where to find you.”
“I think not, Excellency. I am not a guerrilla, and neither do I have the honor of being one of your personal enemies.” Diego smiled.
“Who are you, then?”
“Shhhh! Do not raise your voice. Remember that Agnes finds herself in good company… My name is Zorro, caballero. At your service.”
Forced by his captor, the Frenchman went to his desk and scribbled a brief note on his personal stationery, ordering the release of the hostages.
“I would be grateful if you would add your official seal, Excellency.”
Diego indicated.
Grumbling, Le Chevalier did as Diego directed, then called his valet, who came to the doorway. Behind the door, Diego held his sword pointed at the servant, ready to eliminate him at the first suspicious move.
“Send a guard to La Ciudadela with this letter,” Le Chevalier ordered.
“And tell him he must bring it back to me immediately, signed by the officer in charge, so I can be sure I am being obeyed. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Excellency,” the man replied, and hurried off.
Diego suggested that Le Chevalier should return to bed and keep warm.
It was a cold night, and they might have a long wait. He regretted, he added, that it was necessary to impose in this manner, but he would have to stay with him until the signed letter was returned. Did he have a chessboard or some cards with which they could pass the time?
The Frenchman did not deign to reply. Furious, he slipped beneath the covers, watched by the masked man, who made himself comfortable at the foot of the bed, as if they were intimate friends. They tolerated one another in silence for more than two hours, and just when Diego had begun to fear that something had gone wrong, the valet knocked at the door and handed his master the paper signed by a Captain Fuguet.
“Hasta la vista, Excellency.” And Zorro’s parting words were, “Please be kind enough to give my greetings to the beautiful Agnes.”
He felt sure that Le Chevalier believed his threat and would not raise the alarm before he was safely away, but as a precaution he bound and gagged him. With the tip of his sword he traced a large letter Z on the wall, then with a mocking bow bid his host farewell and dropped from the palace wall to the ground. There he found his horse where Bernardo had hidden it, its hooves wrapped in rags to silence sound. He rode away without raising an outcry because no one was in the streets at that hour. The next day soldiers pasted notices on the walls of public buildings that as a sign of goodwill on the part of the authorities, the hostages had been pardoned. At the same time, a secret hunt was begun to find the dastardly sneak who called himself Zorro. The last thing the leaders of the guerrilla forces could understand was this sudden mercy for hostages, and they were so confused that for a week no new attempts against the French were carried out in Catalonia.
Le Chevalier could not prevent the news from spreading that an insolent brigand had gained entry to his very bedchamber, first among the servants and the palace guards, then everywhere. The Catalans howled with laughter at what had happened, and the name of the mysterious Zorro passed from mouth to mouth for several days, until other matters engaged the public’s attention, and he was forgotten. Diego heard about it in the School of Humanities, in the taverns, and in the de Romeu home. He bit his tongue not to boast of his exploit in public, and he never confessed to Amalia. The Gypsy believed she had been saved by the miraculous power of the talismans and amulets she always wore and the timely intervention of her husband’s ghost.
PART THREE
Barcelona, 1812–1814
I cannot give you any further details about Diego’s relationship with Amalia. Carnal love is one aspect of Zorro’s legend that he has not authorized me to divulge, not so much out of fear of being the butt of jokes or accused of lying as from a sense of gallantry. It is common knowledge that no man that women flock to boasts of his conquests.
Those who do, lie. And besides, I take no pleasure in prying into others’ intimate moments. If you are expecting spicy pages from me, you will be disappointed. All I can say is that in the period when Diego was disporting himself with Amalia, his heart was given wholly to Juliana. So what were those embraces with the Gypsy widow like? One can only imagine. Perhaps she closed her eyes and thought of her murdered husband, while Diego abandoned himself to a fleeting pleasure with his mind a blank. Those clandestine meetings did not muddy the limpid adoration the chaste Juliana inspired in Diego; his emotions were compartmentalized, parallel lines that never crossed. I suspect that that has often been the case throughout Zorro’s long life. I have observed him for three decades, and I know him almost as well as Bernardo does, which is why I dare make that statement. Thanks to his natural charm which is more than a little and his awesome good luck, he has been loved by dozens of women, usually without inviting it. A vague hint, a look out of the corner of his eye, one of his radiant smiles, is ordinarily enough to make even women with virtuous reputations invite him to climb to their balcony at questionable hours of the night. However, Zorro does not fall for them he prefers impossible romances. I would swear that as soon as he jumps from the balcony to terra firma, he forgets the lady he was embracing only moments before. He himself does not know how many times he has fought a duel with a vindictive husband or offended father, but I have kept count not for reasons of envy or jealousy, but because of my thoroughness as a chronicler. Diego remembers only women who tortured him with their indifference like the incomparable Juliana. Many of his feats during those years were frantic attempts to attract that young lady’s attention. When he was with her, he did not play the role of the faint-hearted fop that he adopted to deceive Agnes Duchamp, Le Chevalier, and others. To the contrary, in her presence he fanned out all his feathers like a peacock. He would have done battle with a dragon for her, but there were none in Barcelona, and he had to settle for Rafael Moncada. And now that I have mentioned him, it seems only fair to do justice to the man. Every story must have a villain. In fact, his wickedness is essential, for there are no heroes without enemies of their own stature. Zorro was fortunate to have a rival like Rafael Moncada; otherwise I would not have much to tell in these pages.