~Chapter 19~

Carnal Love raised the black bottle to his lips. Maybe it WAS poison. Who cared? Nobody gave a damn if he lived or died, anyway. There was a mob shouting for his blood out there. He didn't stand a chance. Might as well die in the cave as give himself up to them and be torn apart like a piece of meat by a pack of wolves...

And just as he was about to drink, he heard a voice from above. "Señor Love! You look like you could use a drink, amigo!"

Love looked up at the skylight, hearing his own words that he had spoken to Alejandro the day before. It was Zorro, naturally. Which one, he had no idea. Didn't matter anyway. Damn, there was the other one, too. Both of them, and they held what looked like Scourge's rum jugs, with flaming rags stuck in them.

Love frantically felt for his pistol, then the Zorro who had spoken dropped his jug and it shattered on the cave floor, spewing burning liquid everywhere. Love dropped the black bottle, which shattered at his feet. He was surrounded by flames, and he glanced wildly around for the opening of the cave. Then the other Zorro dropped his jug, and some of the burning rum splashed on Love's clothing.

He screamed and slapped at himself, then ran for the cave entrance.

And the mob was on him.

One fired a shot. It hit him in the leg but he kept running. It was then he remembered his reloaded pistol, and he grabbed it and fired at his pursuers, then scrambled into some underbrush, only to confront a couple of peasants with muskets. They fired, hitting him in the side, but even that didn't stop him. He shot one of them and turned in the other direction....

...only to confront...

...Nestrelda...

...fully grown now, holding a sword straight out and smiling...

And she said, "Did you miss me?"

Love stood frozen, his mouth open in a soundless O of horror. And he watched as her face blackened and crumpled like a piece of burning paper, as she moved right toward him and...

...drove the sword right through his belly. Love shrieked, clutching himself, as she snatched the sword from him, dripping blood, and he staggered about, moaning, then fell on his front, then rolled over on his back, looking up at her. Only, it wasn't Nestrelda.

It was Elena.

And now others gathered round, as he lay clutching his bleeding wound and groaning, a few of them jeering, but most of them silent. Elena drew back a little, tossing the bloody sword aside with an expression of horror at what she had done. The brown-haired girl with the quiver and bow slipped over to her and put an arm around her and looked at Love with a mixture of fear and pity.

Up this close, Love recognized her. "Christina," he gasped. "For...give me..."

And he died.

"It's really over?" Elena whispered as she and Alejandro walked back to the waterfall. He kept his arm around her waist and guided her, and she leaned against him. She seemed in a state of shock. Alejandro's mask was off and he was stroking her hair.

The others were gathering up the bodies and loading them onto a wagon, or tending to the wounded. Elena could see RoZita bandaging up both Ahmed and Pancho and fretting about being out of rum.

"Yes," Alejandro said. "He is dead. Are you all right, querida?"

"I think so." She heard the anxiety in his voice and she leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling very weak.

Alejandro held her fingers tightly and said, "Let us sit down for a moment next to the tree, please." And as they did so Elena leaned against her man, heard his calm deep voice speaking to his friends but the words didn't come through her mind, she felt asleep immediately. She saw Alejandro...oh God, he was so beautiful...He wore light brown aristocratic clothing but he didn't move like a nobleman. He bent down over a crib to a baby. She heard him speak: ...but don't worry, little Joaquin, there will ever, ever be a Zorro… She saw him touch the tiny nose of the baby with one finger....And some day when we'll need him again... she didn't understand the words now because the baby giggled with pleasure. Then Alejandro suddenly took the bunch of Rumania flowers from the crib and used it like a sword, jumping and fighting against an invisible enemy calling "...fighting like a lion...fighting like a tiger...!"

Elena smiled and now she felt his soft lips on hers, his fingertips on her cheek. He was whispering her name and once more she whispered back: "Alejandro, my love..."

But suddenly she heard more voices in the background...still murmuring...it was strange...another sweet kiss of his smooth lips but only very lightly...there must be something wrong...

Slowly she opened her eyes wondering why her man kissed her in this unpassionate way..As she finally got her eyes open she blushed a little. Four pairs of eyes were looking down at her, black, brown, and greenish hazel, all full of concern and admiration.

"It's all right, my dearest, you need some sleep," Alejandro smiled at her.

"Are you sure you're all right?" she heard RoZita's voice saying. "You're not going...to lose the baby or anything? Does anyone know of a doctor?"

"No no no no," Elena gasped as she saw Ahmed and RoZ and Ernesto all looking at her. "Never. I have just had a dream....the baby is fine."

She gave them all a lovely, sweet smile, which flickered out in a moment like a candle flame in a puff of wind. She looked with concern at Alejandro. "You do not think...that the baby will be damaged, or...stained or marked...by what I did?"

"Of course not," Alejandro soothed her. "Our child is lucky to have such a courageous mother. You are the true hero this day."

"I don't know. I think we have all done plenty. And I could have done nothing without all of you." She smiled once more at everyone around her.

"I wonder who Christina is," RoZita said as she walked off with Ahmed and Ernesto to allow Alejandro and Elena to be alone together for a while. "He looked right at me and called me Christina and said, 'Forgive me.' It's so weird. It was like he knew me, and..."

"You reminded him of someone he knew by that name," Ahmed said. "That is all. It is strange, yes. But I'm sure there is some explanation."

She didn't see Ernesto looking at her very oddly just then, because her next thoughts were of the black bottle.

"I wonder if it's still there," she said. "The potion, I mean. I have none left in this jar. It must have spilled."

"What potion?" Ernesto said. Ahmed looked at him and once more he thought how much like the magician Hakim he looked, at least around the eyes. Since Hakim was old and Ernesto was only middle aged, the resemblance was not too strong. But the eyes were very much alike.

They found the bottle shattered in the cave. RoZita picked up piece after piece, desperately trying to find traces of the potion in them, but they were dry, as if they had never held any liquid at all.

"I'm trapped," she whispered, tears starting in her eyes. "I'll never see my parents again."

As Ahmed put his arms around her she wondered, dizzily, if it would do any good to click her heels together and chant, "There's no place like home." She rather doubted it. And Ernesto was looking strangely at her once more.

"I know who Christina was," he said very softly.

Ahmed looked at him questioningly. RoZita didn't look at him at all. She no longer cared.

"Please tell us," Ahmed said, as he stroked her hair.

"She was a servant girl who worked in Love's house shortly after his marriage," Ernesto explained. "That was about ten or twelve years ago. Of course, it is only hearsay to me. I do not know how much is true and how much is mere gossip and speculation. But I heard that he was in love with her, and pursued her relentlessly. Love's wife, Ruby Mae, became furiously jealous. So she went spreading it all over town that the girl was a harlot and she and Love were having an affair. Christina left the house and went back to her parents, but she could hardly go anywhere without people hounding her openly or whispering behind her back. Rumor had it that she was carrying his child, although Love vehemently denied that he had ever touched her. Finally she could stand it no more, I suppose, and she committed suicide. And the medical examination revealed...."

Ernesto broke off, looking at RoZita hesitantly, as though wondering whether it would offend her for him to tell.

"That she was pregnant?" she finished for him.

"Yes," Ernesto said. "Such a sad thing. She was only seventeen, pretty, bright, and spirited, but a bit shy and overly sensitive. I imagine she was...raped. I do not believe she ever succumbed willingly to him, although I will never know for certain. You could be her twin sister, I would swear. I had almost forgotten, it has been so long since it happened, but when he spoke her name...you know, her parents are still living. Perhaps you should meet them."

"Umm...do you think that's such a good idea?" she hedged. "If I look so much like her, wouldn't it be too painful of a reminder? Or wouldn't it scare them?"

At the same time she was suddenly very curious. Her own parents were lost to her...or were they?

They left the cave and went back to the waterfall. Pancho and some of the men were still there. Ernesto went to Pancho and spoke with him. Ahmed went to where Alejandro and Elena still sat and told them about the broken bottle and what Ernesto had told them about Christina.

"I have a really weird feeling," RoZita said. "I want to meet her parents. Or at least see them from a distance. I just...really want to do this."

"You know where they live?" Alejandro asked Ernesto.

"I can find out," Ernesto said.

"I did not know about this," Pancho said as they all rode into town. They were a strange company indeed, Ahmed and RoZita riding Fezeek in the lead, Alejandro on Tornado, Elena on Luna beside him, Pancho and Ernesto on their horses, the rest of the men riding behind, a wagon pulling the bodies in the rear. "I have only lived in this area for about six years. Had I known, I would never have worked for such an evil scoundrel. Never would have allowed my Luisita to live in his house."

"Oh, I imagine Señora Love has been keeping a weather eye out for the girl this time," Ernesto said with grim humor.

The house where Christina's parents lived was a small one, shabby but neat. RoZita trembled as Ahmed helped her down from the camel. Then she suddenly turned to Ernesto.

"Did Christina have any sisters?" she asked.

"Three, I believe," he said. "She was the eldest."

RoZita drew a deep breath. She had three younger sisters.

It was a long time before she could bring herself to knock at the door. She heard a small dog barking within, and she clutched Ahmed's hand tightly, not out of fear of the dog, but from anticipation.

"Who is it?" she heard a voice speak inside, and her heart nearly stopped beating. The voice was so like her mother's. Then the door opened and a small, plump, pretty woman in her late forties appeared. And she and RoZ both nearly fainted.

"Christina?" the woman gasped.

"Oh my God," RoZita nearly screamed. "MOM!!!"

Ahmed could see her exactly...a tall, golden-haired woman in a long blue dress. She sat in a meadow with a baby in her arm...the sun was shining on them...his little boy jumped around with other boys his age...and there were other women too...and she smiled at him like an angel...she became an angel, his Olga...and she waved to him...from the distance, calling, "Ahmed, do it! You should not be alone your whole life! Marry her. She is a good, lovely, and brave woman. And she loves you with all her heart...we are doing fine here..."

Then slowly the whole scene disappeared...and Ahmed found himself whispering, "You will always be in my mind..."

He opened his eyes and felt RoZita nestled on his chest, her arm around his waist, still deeply sleeping, her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders, with reddish gold highlights in it from the sun that peeped between the leaves of the oak tree they rested underneath. He thought of his vision again. He would never forget his lost family but this woman who rested beside him now had become his new love. He had known her for only a few weeks, but he couldn't imagine being parted from her. She made him laugh and feel wonderful, she was singing and writing with him, loving him as both poet and warrior. She even had a little horse of her own now, a colt born to Luna and Tornado a couple of weeks ago, and Ahmed was teaching her to ride....

He smiled, tenderly caressing her hair, remembering her lying at his feet in her colorful outsized garment, at their first meeting, the way she stoutly defended him against Elena with his scimitar...She now wore a pretty green and yellow calico dress made in the fashion of the period, which looked very odd to him, but she wore it with the air of a young girl dressing up for a masquerade. She had taken off her straw bonnet, which was charmingly trimmed with yellow silk roses, and her small hand held the strings loosely in her sleep, looking far too innocent to be the brave warrior who had fought by his side…

But something was wrong. She did not look peaceful…

Then suddenly she squirmed and began to thrust with her feet against an invisible enemy, yelling, "No, NO! Go away! DON'T TOUCH ME!"

Ahmed sat up, calling, "RoZita, dearest, wake up! I'm here! It is only a dream!" Gently he shook her by the shoulder. Finally she opened her eyes, shuddering, glancing fearfully around. But as she looked at Ahmed who was leaning against the tree now, holding her hands, the moonlight fell on his face, which was covered with a two-day beard, she forgot almost immediately her terrible nightmare.

"It was him," she gasped. "He came to my bed...and I couldn't get away from him…"

Ahmed gently touched her face saying, "My love, forget the dream, come here." He took her in his arms and only held her tight for few moments. She felt his warm body and caressed his chest hair. It felt so good only to lie there silently and to be held by him.

After a sweet eternity Ahmed cleared his throat and RoZ looked up into his beautiful dark eyes, thinking she could have applied blusher to her cheeks with his eyelashes. He stood up and pulled her on her feet, then knelt in front of her, took her hand, kissed it and begged, "RoZita, my angel, I love you, I need you like the earth needs the water and the sun to be alive, to produce all beautiful and necessary things. I must never be parted from you, I want to share my life with you. Please, marry me!"

His plea took her breath away. RoZita knelt too, able only to nod, and they fell into each other's arms as their lips met in an endless kiss.