The Legend of Zorro

From the Lair of the Fox

Thunder crashes outside the dark labyrinth of Zorro’s secret lair, the sound vying in my ears with the pounding of my own heart. His journals lie open, his secrets stand revealed. I know everything now about those thrilling days when the fate of our country rested with a brave but struggling father and his rebellious son. Or so I believe.

Zorro approaches, his eyes revealing a final truth. Were it not for the mysterious depths glimpsed in his dark and searching eyes, I would see only the blaze of his roguish grin, the shimmering sweep of his sword, the flowing black reaches of his cape and costume.

I would not see a man; I would see only a legend.

As I stand before Zorro, the tip of his blade raised boldly in challenge, I find my voice at last. But what I have to say is not for him to hear.

It is for you.

Prologue

The tale begins long ago in a land called Franconia. It was the Year of Our Lord thirteen hundred and fifty. The crusades had ended and a war destined to last a century raged between England and France.

And yet…they say there are two histories. The one we read in books…and the true history, the one known but never written. As the countries of Europe squabbled like schoolchildren on a playground, a brotherhood of knights, corrupted by power and greed, waged their own Holy War with one ambition: to erect a shadow kingdom, to dominate the world as it was then known.

They were the Knights of Aragon.

Alexandre Laroche, the most highly regarded knight in this secret circle, plunged through a churning stream foaming with bright crimson blood as hellish fires flickered against the dusk at his back. The amber flames scorched his gleaming steel armor as the clangor of swords and the splitting of shields burst deafeningly around him. Hefting his broadsword, he smashed it down in a mighty arc, dispatching a leather-garbed enemy soldier. Whirling and slashing, the brutal and ferocious Laroche carved a wide gap through the screaming knot of Germanic defenders that had cut him off from his fellow knights.

Your masters should have known to bow before their betters! he roared, killing the final two that had challenged him. Laroche’s gaze shot to his main forces as they sped down toward the unnerved battalions of Germans from either side of the bracing valley, giving up hiding places behind high heavy trees. The Aragonian warriors charged in tight columns, one directly behind another, giving the illusion that their numbers were few so that their enemies would not even consider retreating until it was too late. Raising his sword, Laroche signaled the armored warriors to fan out until they surged into an all-encompassing swarm. Whipping his sword wildly to the right, he commanded his archers to loose hell on their enemies. Whistling arrows sliced the air as the archers broke the ranks of the five hundred Germans trapped here. Endless volleys of deadly shafts stung the sky from both sides of the vale.

He started as a hand clawed up from the muddy water below and grasped his leg. Fiend! choked a dying warrior.

The bloodthirsty Laroche callously shrugged off the German, his eyes narrowing with contempt. His wrought-iron faceplate, crafted to resemble a grotesquely leering demon, provided a glimpse of the unyielding hell his victims would soon be visiting. The mask—identical to those worn by his seven fellow true Knights of Aragon—also served another purpose, one that made Laroche grin even as he waded deeper into the midst of his enemies.

Laroche set his sights on the opposition leader as the fighting raced like wildfire to the shore. The knight studied his foe’s snarling face, his pockmarked skin, the rough clutch of his gray receding hair in its tight ringlets, and decided that dispatching this man personally was a point of honor. As he plunged closer to his prey, Laroche kicked aside one of the bodies of the seventy men who had volunteered to draw out the infidels, their corpses bobbing in the shallows of the hissing, lapping stream. Laroche had baited his trap well.

Other knights rushed to his side as rippling walls of enemy soldiers rose up, anxious to taste his gore-drenched steel.

Have at them, howled Laroche, gesturing magnanimously to his fellows. There’s plenty for all of you!

The clang of mail on mail shattered the early evening as Laroche dispatched a few more men then pressed on toward his prize, his thoughts flickering on the arduous journey he and his warriors had taken to reach this place of destiny. They had crested the Alps, sliced their way through the Bohemian Forest, sailed across the Danube, and marched finally to this spot. The country’s leaders had come here to plan their defense, these waters reaching all the way to the western bank of the Rhine. Controlling Franconia—the heart of the Germanic territories, a fertile land of rich, rolling hills braced by high gray mountains—meant controlling the country.

Laroche’s brief reverie was ripped asunder by a warrior’s scream of challenge. Ahead, the man Laroche had targeted stood with a handful of his best men, the entire lot bracing for death. Swords raised in a valiant attempt to claim vengeance for their losses, the survivors of the First Guard massed at the center of the swirling maelstrom of death into which they had wandered less than an hour before.

All about Laroche, the thunderous sounds of battle ebbed as the dead grew to outnumber the living on the muddy crimson-stained battlefield rising up on either side of the stream. Before this night was done, fully a thousand warriors on both sides of the conflict would perish, and a spectacular prize would be won. Only eight men would live to claim it. Laroche would be one of them.

With a bellow of laughter, Laroche attacked. The leather-bound Germans remaining in the stream fought bravely, but they were no match for the mad, possessed knight. Soon only Laroche and the enemy leader stood in this wet, windy stretch as the sky surrendered to deepest night.

The German lifted his sword. A trio of broken arrows jutted from his arms and thigh.

They say a war leaves a country with three armies, taunted Laroche in a tongue he felt certain his opponent would understand. An army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of the dead. But they neglect to mention those for whom armies are nothing more than a means to an end. You fought well, my friend. You’ve earned a special fate. I curse you not only with damnation, but also with knowledge. Look to the hills.

The German soldier shifted his uneasy gaze to the steadily climbing hills, where his people hung impaled on huge poles and watchfires crackled among clusters of the dead. But something strange was happening. The victors themselves were falling. The steel-clad horde of armored soldiers careened about wildly, clutching at their throats, their skulls. In a tumult of agonized screams, they dropped writhing to the ground.

Soon, only the eight who wore the masks of demons remained. One of them hefted a whipping banner on which a serpent appeared to be circling the globe.

Our food was poisoned, explained Laroche. A handful of us had the antidote in our masks.

Some enemy— began the German, grinding out the words between clenched teeth.

Hardly, Laroche said, laughing. I mixed the deadly blend myself. Our cause does not bend to the will of foolish kings, it does not recognize the boundaries of country or state set by the pathetic, fearful masses. This battle not only hands us the territory we desire, it allows us the chance to rid ourselves of weaker elements who would betray us given time. The world is our dominion, whether it is aware of that fact or not.

The German’s eyes blazed murderously as he glared at Laroche. "You are a demon."

Perhaps I am.

They raced for each other, swords flashing.

The stars shivered in the distance as the fog-enfolded river flowed to the east and night gathered the gray chapel’s thick walls and high turrets in its cold embrace. All was dim within, the chapel’s narrow halls leading to somber vaults and dank chambers hidden deep below the ground. A scurrying man gathered his brown robe to keep from tripping on it as he sped to a pair of huge wooden doors at the base of a winding subterranean stairwell. Winded, he caught his breath and gulped in the damp musty air as soldiers pressed their shoulders to the doors, swinging them open wide to allow the priest entry.

Shrugging off his monk’s habit to reveal silk finery, the latecomer quickly took his place among a dozen similarly dressed men at the large central table gracing the grand, torch-lit hall. Shadows danced across the elegant stonework as the temple’s grand master, Alexandre Laroche, acknowledged the young bearded knight Tougaine, who stood apart from the other high ranking members of the circle.

With this victory over Franconia, all of Europe lies at our feet! announced the tall, wiry bearded knight, thumping his hand against the map of the world spread across the west wall. A serpent bounded all the known continents and appeared ready to stretch across any yet to be discovered.

A toast, cried Laroche, his large, dark, inquisitive eyes gleaming as he raised his goblet from the head of the table. That the Knights of Aragon shall rule the world for the next thousand years!

The knights banged their goblets together and drank heartily, the swirling red wine soothing their throats, made sore and scratchy by the choking mustiness of this tomb. Laroche grinned with satisfaction, the flickering torchlight stealing across the well-sculpted planes of his handsome face.

Perhaps…’’ came an eerie rasping from the darkness at their backs. Perhaps not."

The knights turned as one. A wizened figure crept forward from the shadows, his withered hand clutching the bejeweled serpentine head of his gnarled walking cane, his labored breath echoing off the stone walls.

Laroche’s hand crept to the scarlet strip of cloth he’d bound about his neck, a lady’s favor paid for in exquisite blood. He scowled at the soothsayer, anxious to hide his bewilderment. I don’t recall arranging for this amusement, seer.

The seer stepped forward, raising an aged and shaking, spotted hand. Hear me now, for I have had a vision…a nation not yet born threatens to grow so strong, the brotherhood and its dreams may be rendered to dust.

Silence spread upon the room.

Explain, demanded Laroche.

The seer lifted his cane and tapped it on the map, the twisted wood grazing the serpent crest. Though it does not yet appear on any map, there is land waiting to be discovered. You will have but one chance to strike down its threat.

"Tell me when, so we can prepare…’’ urged Laroche.

The burden will fall to your heirs, added the soothsayer cryptically. Five hundred years must pass before you can claim the world as your own.

Laroche rose from the table, aware of the uncertain gazes assailing him from his brethren. Whether the old man’s words were true or not, Laroche would be damned if he would allow his position of power amongst these men to be threatened. He approached the soothsayer and spoke in a low growl. You tell us that a nation we’ve not yet heard of will rise from a land that doesn’t exist—steal from us the destiny that is ours—and there is nothing we can do about it for five hundred years?

The soothsayer nodded. I cannot will my tongue to lie.

Laroche’s steely gaze narrowed as he considered the soothsayer’s warning. "Indeed, your tongue speaks with such conviction, we’d be fools not to listen. And to insure our heirs do as well…’’Laroche’s words trailed off as he signaled to a pair of knights standing near the door, one of great height and fair-haired as a Viking, the other even taller, bald, with mocha flesh, a prince of the Moorish lands. They seized the soothsayer.

The old man struggled, but he was too weak to break free.

Laroche yanked a dagger from his belt, its handle molded in the familiar shape of a serpent coiled around the globe. The soothsayer squirmed, his eyes wide, as Laroche clutched the seer’s tongue and raised the dagger. Laroche laughed and promised, We shall pass it down as a reminder of your warning.

The blade swung down, and when the deed was done, Laroche poured a goblet of wine over his red-specked face and through his lustrous wavy black hair. He ordered the whimpering seer taken away and clapped his hands to command the others to resume their festivities. His brethren did so without hesitation.

Laroche sank into his chair, his dark eyes troubled. The old man’s blood was easy enough to wash away. If only the same could be said of the uneasiness wrought by his strange and terrifying prophecy. Laroche’s gaze shifted to the map—where blood dripped from a patch of coastal land that had no name so far as he was aware. Had he also been granted the strange sight of the seer, he might have known that this land would one day be known as California, and that the battle spoken of would indeed come to pass. It would be waged by a man wearing quite a different mask. And would, in fact, define Laroche’s bloody legacy—and that of his order.

Somewhere in the distance—perhaps over the gulf of the great stretches of time itself—sounded the low echoing of a tolling bell.

Chapter 1

San Mateo, California. 1850.

A very special bell tolled in the high reaches of Mission Santa Lucia. The bronze bell, cast in Peru and tuned to a strident minor chord, rang so hard that Brother Felipe imagined it swinging clear of its campanario and diving headlong into the swelling mass of visitors thronging the street below.

A pair of young wash women giggled as the balding, bleary-eyed Felipe raced past them from his private office, where the brother was known to catch an additional siesta from time to time. He was headed toward a low stairwell on the mission’s ground floor. So was a rush of water from the mouth of a gargoyle which flowed into a trough next to the sweating ladies as they washed the mission’s laundry, spattering their cow-elk hide blankets, aprons and petticoats—along with the slippery bottom stone step. With surprising grace, Felipe danced over the slick step and bolted up the stairs.

"Padre, are you not the friend of Señor Zorro, the one to whom the tolling of that bell is entrusted?" the bolder of the women called after him.

Yes, who is ringing it, Felipe? asked the other.

Who indeed, wondered the Franciscan missionary as he scurried up the steps. His thoughts fixed on one of the biggest troublemakers he knew. Joaquin, if it is you, it will be your hide I tan next!

He reached a landing and rushed through a busy workshop where shoes and children’s toys were being made. A cloud of sawdust flew in Felipe’s face, causing the brother to cough as the rich musk of well-tanned leather reached into his lungs. George Cook, a Native American man whose friends knew him as Laughing Coyote, grinned toothily and hummed El Cantico del Alba as Felipe bustled by. The devotional song about the Virgin Mary was sung every morning once all the people had risen, and everyone knew that was the often sleep-deprived Felipe’s least favorite time in the world.

The bell tolled once more. That sound marked Mission life. Prayers, instruction, afternoon siestas, work, meals, and bedtime were all signaled by its ringing.

Felipe huffed indignantly and pulled sharply at the fold of his brown wool habit, making the hood resting at the back of his neck scratch him like a spider’s fuzzy leg. He adjusted his cincture as he hurried to another set of stairs, the three knots expertly tied from decades of practice, one to remind him of his vow of poverty, the other two chastity and obedience. His rosary and cross dangled from the cincture as he picked up steam once more, the pouch he carried banging against his side, weighted by his prayer book and personal journal.

From the distance sounded the squalling wooden wheels of a carreta—an ox-cart used by hide and tallow traders to transport their wares. Felipe was well aware that although today was indeed a momentous day for the people of California, those same people still had to make a living.

The bell tolled again as Felipe mounted the last set of stairs, an orange-striped tabby cat brushing his leg. Cats were as plentiful in the missions as tales of hauntings. They were necessary and so too were the little access doors they had in every room. Without them, rats would overrun the place. And with the thought of rats…

Joaquin, you little scamp, I love you as if you were my own, but if it is you again? thought Felipe, picturing the dark-haired ten-year-old hauling on the rope in the belfry. As he climbed, a little out of breath, his head now hanging low, Felipe nearly stumbled over a young neophyte in a cotton jacket sprawled on a high step, snoring blissfully, oblivious to the ringing bell a dozen feet over his head. A bowl next to the snoozing man sported the remains of an early and austere meal: fruit, soup, milk and bread. Life here was not one of sangrias and fandangos. A few marked playing cards drifted from the sleeping man’s sleeve. As the best card player in the mission, Felipe noted this man’s face well, and vowed never to play a hand against him.

Felipe finally cleared the landing—and found himself peering at the wide-eyed, well-scrubbed face of the mission’s youngest and most skittish brother.

Brother Ignacio? asked Felipe.

The young monk spun, the bell rope flying through his twitchy pale fingers as he faced the mission’s curator. Its last toll was now a dull echo.

What are you doing? questioned Felipe, struggling to keep his tone mild.

Five rings, Fray Felipe, explained the short, round-faced Brother Ignacio earnestly. To summon Zorro in case there’s trouble.

Fray Felipe. Not Brother Felipe, as it might be said in English, the language they had all promised to speak from now on. Ignacio was an educated man, a fresh recruit from Felipe’s alma mater on the Isle of Mallorca. Yet he could be so thick upon occasion.

I come to serve, I come to serve, Felipe chanted in his mind, begging the Lord for patience.

Releasing his frustration, Felipe gently patted Ignacio’s shoulder. If I know Zorro…he’s already here.

Leaning closer to the campanario, Felipe peered into the sea of excited faces below. Many looked up expectantly, as if Felipe might tell them why Zorro was being summoned, if some threat they could not yet see was moving among them. Felipe shooed them back to what they had been doing. His searching gaze scoured the wide street, which swarmed with hundreds who formed long lines to cast their votes today. Red, white and blue flags decorated the plaza. Patriotic buntings flapped in the afternoon breeze near a banner that demanded, VOTE TODAY!

The orange glow of the waning yet still bright sun told them that the voting would end soon, and the voice of the California people would at last be heard.

Freedom, Felipe whispered, crossing himself.

This time, Brother Ignacio gently patted Felipe’s shoulder. Freedom.

Felipe turned away. Had he lingered but a moment longer, he might have seen the small, wild-haired, mischievous boy Joaquin racing around below, anxious for a chance to snatch a loaf of bread fresh from the mission’s cone-shaped wood-fired oven. He also might have seen an unusual visitor to the voting booths. For beneath a ratty sombrero worn by a seeming peasant, a man with a wily smile and sparkling eyes gazed at the ballot. There were two boxes, two choices: IN FAVOR OF THE CONSTITUTION or IN OPPOSITION TO THE CONSTITUTION.

Rather than marking an X in favor of joining the union, this man scrawled a stylish Z.

Smiling, Zorro adjusted his mask and whipped open the voting booth’s scarlet privacy curtain, dropping his ballot in a basket guarded by red-uniformed soldiers known as Rurales. Brother Felipe knew the disguised hero well—it was to the brother that Zorro told his tales and confided his most cherished secrets. Felipe might have seen the masked man and thought, Well done, Alejandro de la Vega. And God bless us all that you are here.

Instead, Felipe traced his way back through the mission and was now emerging from the front arcade. He breezed past a mission worker dragging a fierce pair of kicking and spitting curly horned churro sheep on the right and a collection of flashily dressed men playing at the style of the vaquero, or Spanish cowboys on the left. One of the posers leaned against the mission wall, gazing imperiously at the younger women gathered around the voting area. Felipe tapped the gold and emerald studded shoulder of the man’s shiny jacket.

Felipe wove further through the milling throng gathered here for Election Day, sharing their excitement. Strong perfume filled Felipe’s lungs as he eased around a clutch of well-dressed women. His world became a pastel swirl of lace and petticoats, and for an instant, Felipe recalled his life before entering the church, the bittersweet memory of standing beneath his sweetheart’s balcony to serenade her on cool summer evenings breezing through his mind. Ah, but that was a long time ago. Returning to the present, he passed by the fine ladies and encountered older, poorer women clutching their threadbare shawls, the sun beating against large combs in their hair tucked beneath their veil-like mantillas. Some of the peasant men smiling at the padre rested their rough hands on the colorful suspenders strung over their homespun shirts and buttoned to their pants, while others tipped their straw hats. The snapping of castanets assailed him from flamenco dancers, while mariachis strummed passionate refrains, filling the air with music, joy and celebration.

His heritage called out to him and he thought…Fray Felipe. Yes, that is how it should be.

Ahead lay a speaker’s corner, a brace of men spouting rhetoric for and against the vote. The gentleman who railed against the pledge of the United States to provide freedoms such as the people of this land had never known was an outsider, thought by many to have been hired by big business interests intent on continuing their exploitation of the people. One woman had even suggested that he might be an agent of the Pinkertons, the National Detective Agency whose first—and most notorious triumph—had been during the Homestead Strike, when they were hired as bodyguards to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of their own factories. The Pinkertons had broken up coal, iron and lumber disputes in New York and Illinois, and had become the mustache-twirling villains of choice in dime-store novels these days.

The other man perched boldly atop a soapbox was another matter entirely. Crowds of supporters flocked to him as he handed out pamphlets, a few excited men and women nearly edging his opponent from his spot.

Guillermo Cortez raised his bearded jaw and cast his fierce, determined gaze on the people. The breeze tousled his short shiny black hair and the fading sunlight added noble highlights to the ridges of his high cheekbones and the bridge of his squareset nose. In his long-sleeve linen work shirt with suspenders, he was a striking figure, a man of the people, a leader who commanded respect.

Casting her proud gaze at her beloved husband, Blanca Cortez patted her round and very pregnant stomach. She nodded vigorously when her husband stamped his pointed-toe boots, and, in quieter moments, her hand sometimes trailed to the final heirlooms left to her by her once wealthy family: a turtle-shell comb, a signet ring with her family’s now retired coat of arms. As he neared the end of his speech, the beautiful, voluptuous woman pulled her tattered black lace shawl tight, and smiled to the watching Fray Felipe as her husband’s voice burst above the friendly roar of the crowd.

Vote ‘yes’ to statehood! cried Cortez. This is our day of independence! Our day of revolution!

Libertad! cried Cortez’s rapt audience. Viva California! Viva America!

Fray Felipe added his booming voice to that of his people. Freedom!

Standing before the window of a seedy hotel room, looking down at the bustling square where the election was in full swing, a man cast in darkness glared at Cortez and the swelling crowd of voters. The scene below him made him feel as ill as the first time he’d looked into a ship’s hold and met the thousand red eyes of a swarming mass of vermin.

You want to be free, you ignorant blight on the face of righteousness? wondered Jacob McGivens. I’ll see that you’re free…free to meet the Lord and complain to Him directly about your problems, hombre…

The watcher thought of himself as an American through and through, and a man dedicated to the Lord. He wore a long black coat and a white shirt with a high collar so that those who came upon him would know that they were dealing with a man sent by God to be their judge. The only company that the strongly built, forty-year-old gunman might have liked even less than that of the greasy peasants below were those now meeting in a cluster at the other side of the room. To show just what he thought of the trio of fat, cowardly millionaires who had just promised him a fortune, Jacob McGivens delivered the greatest insult he knew:

He showed them his back.

Even if he hadn’t been loading twin Colt revolvers with the most magnificent blue steel barrels and well oiled chambers, he would have been hard-pressed to view these idiots as threats. His thumb moved over the polished dark wood handle of the first gun, which bore a silver plate into which the word salvation was inscribed, while damnation adorned the silver plate on the handle of its twin. With these guns, McGivens was ready to deliver the mighty voice of the Lord. He just hadn’t yet decided if he would take these jackanapes’ lives along with their money.

He stared at the mass of people below, his brain suddenly bursting into flames of pure hatred.

Filthy scum polluting this land just by being here. Hell, I’d do this job for free, if it came to it!

Behind McGivens, one of the self-important railroad barons was at it again. McGivens glanced at the group’s reflection in the barrel of his nearest gun. All three men wore brand-new hats without a speck of dust on them and finely tailored dark suits that servants or slaves probably helped them put on. They even smelled the same, having sprinkled perfumed macassar oil on their hair to keep it tidy in the California heat. It was their leader, Cornelius Tweed, who had raised an imploring hand.

If California becomes a state, we lose millions, murmured Tweed, a white-bearded man wearing an asymmetrically tied cravat.

Daniel Marcy, whose starched high white collar rubbed against the bottom of his round heavily whiskered face, tugged on his dark brown velvet