Several of our members have been arrested, so they have a great deal of information. The circle is closing around us. We will have to dissolve the society temporarily.“
“And Don Manuel Escalante?”
“I hope for the good of all that he can find a way to end his days before he is subjected to torture,” sighed Julius Caesar. “They are holding the maestro in a local barracks. It isn’t La Ciudadela, we must try to rescue him,” Diego contended. “Rescue him? Impossible!”
“Difficult, but not impossible. I will need the help of La Justicia.
We will do it this very night,“ Diego replied, and explained his plan. ”It seems madness to me, but it is worth the attempt. We will help you,“ his companion decided. ”It will be necessary to get the maestro out of the city immediately.“
“Of course. We can have a boat with a trustworthy oarsman waiting in the port. I think we can slip through the guards. The boatman will row the maestro to the ship that is sailing at dawn for Naples. There he will be safe.” Diego sighed, thinking once again how badly he needed Bernardo. This was more serious than slipping into Le Chevalier’s mansion. It was no joke to attack a barracks, overcome the guards he had no idea how many there were free the prisoner, and get him to a boat unharmed before the law sank its claws into them. Diego rode to Eulalia de Callis’s mansion, whose layout he had carefully studied every time he visited. He left his horse in the street and crept unseen through the gardens to the service patio, where chickens and small animals were wandering among blocks for slaughtering hogs, laundry troughs, large vats for boiling sheets, and clotheslines hung with wash. In the rear were the carriage house and stables. Cooks, footmen, and servant girls were everywhere, all busy at their chores. No one even glanced at him. He went into the shed, concealed by the coaches, chose one that suited him, and waited, crossing his fingers that no stable hand would discover him. He knew that at five the bells rang to call the servants to the kitchen; Eulalia de Callis herself had told him that. It was the hour when the matriarch offered a treat to her army of retainers: cups of foaming chocolate and bread to dunk in them. Half an hour later, Diego heard the bells ring, and in a trice the patio was emptied of people. The breeze carried the delicate aroma of chocolate, and he felt his mouth fill with saliva. Ever since the family had left for the country, he had eaten very poorly in the de Romeu house. Diego, aware that he had only ten or fifteen minutes, quickly pried the coat of arms off the door of a carriage and took a pair of jackets from their hangers: footmen’s elegant livery of sky-blue velvet with crimson collar and lining, gilded buttons and epaulets. He left behind the lace-collared shirts, white trousers, patent leather shoes with silver buckles, and red brocade sashes that completed the uniforms. As Tomas de Romeu had said, not even Napoleon Bonaparte was outfitted as elegantly as Eulalia’s servants. Once Diego was sure that the patio was empty, he left with his bundle, darting among the bushes, and found his horse. Soon he was trotting toward home. Among the things in storage there he found a battered old carriage too old and fragile to take to the country. Compared with any of those in Dona Eulalia’s shed, it was ruinous, but Diego was praying that with the darkness no one would notice what bad shape it was in. He would have to wait until sunset and calculate his time with care; the success of his mission depended on it. After nailing the shield onto the carriage, he went down to the wine cellar, which the majordomo kept tightly locked a minor hindrance for Diego, who had learned to pick any kind of lock. He opened the door, chose a cask of wine, and rolled it away in plain view of the servants, who asked no questions, believing that Don Tomas had given Diego the key before he left. For more than four years Diego had safeguarded the treasure of the sleeping potion his grandmother, White Owl, had given him as a farewell gift after making him promise that he would use it only to save lives. And that was exactly what he intended to do with it. Many years before, Padre Mendoza had amputated a leg using that potion, and he himself had stunned a bear. He did not know how powerful the drug might be when diluted in that amount of wine; it might not have the effect he hoped, but he had to try. He poured the contents of the flask into the cask and sloshed it around to mix it. Shortly afterward, two accomplices from La Justicia arrived; they put on the white wigs of footmen and the livery from the house of Callis. Diego himself was dressed like a prince in his best coffee-colored velvet jacket with fur collar and gold and silver passementerie lace; his formal starched tie was held with a pearl stickpin, and butter yellow trousers, foppish shoes with gilded buckles, and top hat completed the ensemble. In this attire he was driven by his comrades to the barracks. It was the dark of night when he knocked at a door badly lighted by lanterns. In the ringing voice of someone accustomed to giving orders, Diego ordered the two guards to call their superior officer. He turned out to be a young second lieutenant with a strong Andalusian accent, who was flabbergasted by Diego’s stunning elegance and the coat of arms on the carriage. “Her Excellency, Dona Eulalia de Callis, is sending a barrel of the best wine from her cellar, so that you and your men may toast her tonight,” Diego announced with a superior air. “It is her birthday.”