Chapter 5

Victoria’s brother Ramon returned from Venezuela soon after the marriage to take over tending to the tavern. She and Diego had decided that since her brother Francisco had helped Zorro escape the lancers several years before, it was still too dangerous for him to appear in the pueblo. The Alcalde might be different now, but many of the lancers still remembered that day. So it was that Ramon moved into the tavern, and Francisco was kept informed, but stayed away for safety’s sake. Victoria was thus left free to move permanently into the de la Vega hacienda so that it would be easier for Diego to study possible cures.

Two weeks later, Victoria was already noticeably thinner than she’d been at the wedding. Diego tried hard not to think about that.

“Here, try this.” Diego handed a bowl of mash to his ever-thinning wife. “Felipe thought something called keets might have an effect, and Dr. Hernandez thinks it worth a try. They were shipped all the way from--”

“Ew!” Victoria wrinkled her nose at the smell. “Are you... sure?”

“I’m certain they’re a vegetable, and as we’re trying vegetables first as a possible cure, I don’t want to leave anything out, no matter how disgusting it is. Who knows, this may be the one thing we’re looking for.”

Victoria looked resigned. “You know, Diego... if it wasn’t for... your cheerful... determination, I’d have given... up finding a cure... after the first week.”

“This is only the second week. I never thought someone like you would give up so quickly.”

“I haven’t... given up,” Victoria assured. “It’s just that... I wish possible cures... might not smell... so bad.”

Diego kept his voice light as he aimed to look at the bright side. “I hear that the worse it smells, the better it tastes.”

“Then this stuff... will definitely.... taste great.” Victoria lifted the bowl in a salute. “Here goes... nothing.” In one swift gulp, she drained the bowl.

Diego clutched the accounts ledger he’d been using to record exactly what Victoria ate and drank every day, as well as what effect it had. But nothing happened, so there was nothing to record.

Until Victoria hastily leaned aside and threw up all over the library rug.

“Nope,” she said and wiped her mouth on the edge of her skirt, looking in dismay at the stain spreading across Don Alejando’s prize carpet. “Maybe we should… have used a… towel.”

Diego leaned over to soak up the worst of the keets. “Perhaps Felipe can move the chess table to cover it,” Diego suggested, but three kitchen maids pushed him out of their way. He rose inelegantly and pulled Victoria aside just in time to avoid the following cleaning frenzy.

Victoria insisted, “No, Benita, I can... get it. You take Lupé… and Maria back to the--”

“Like I told you last week, Mistress, we’re here to help,” Benita firmly said, pushing Victoria away as easily as she’d pushed Diego. “Besides, you’ll hurt Maria’s feelings if you don’t let us help.”

“She’s right, Mistress,” Maria said.

“Maria, you have to… cook too much to… mess around… with me,” Victoria said just as firmly, dropping to her hands and knees beside the servants. “I’ll--”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Maria took Victoria’s hands in hers, leading her quickly towards the waiting Diego. “Do us a favor, and rest. She should rest, shouldn’t she, Master Diego?”

Diego looked up from the ledger in his hands. “Oh. Yes. Right. She should rest.” Then he smiled slyly over the top of the ledger. “Not that Victoria has rested a day in her life.”

Maria was fierce. “Well, make her!”

“Anything you say.” Diego grinned even as he wrote ‘keets, mashed with water… no change,’ beside the date. “Maria has spoken. Now we know who the true master of the de la Vega hacienda is.”

Z Z Z

Many more vegetables later, Diego finally conceded that the elusive cure lay in another direction. “Maybe we should try the drugs Dr. Hernandez keeps in his office.” Not that there are many drugs, he silently conceded. His gaze caught on the purple stain the chess table didn’t quite cover. “Let’s start tomorrow.”

Victoria’s gaze joined his. “Maybe we should.”

Diego’s answering grin was more caustic than amused. “You just don’t want any more vegetable disasters.”

Victoria tilted her head for a better viewing angle. “Of course… not. I love… throwing up.”

But when they tried to treat one of her symptoms, which the drugs often did, one of her other symptoms often suffered. They concentrated on her loss of appetite, and her heart rate went up. If they focused on her tendency towards distraction, her breathing became more labored. Then when they tried to treat her breathing problems, it increased her desire to sleep… until she threw up again. Though by now, they always had a bowl handy, just in case. Diego and Dr. Hernandez agreed that it was better to watch her sleep rather than throw up.

While Victoria slept the afternoon away once again, Diego dutifully recorded the words ‘no change’ beside the drug and the date.

‘No change’ was becoming Diego’s new mantra.

Z Z Z

“Maybe we should try herbs and spices next,” Diego said to an ever weakening Victoria. “You know more about them than I do.”

“Maria knows… as much as I do… if not more,” Victoria insisted fairly.

“I’ll talk to her,” Diego promised, all the while watching Victoria turn listlessly away. She’s either distracted again, or getting depressed that we’re not finding the cure any faster.

“I won’t give up, Victoria,” Diego said with renewed determination. “Don’t you give up, either.”

Victoria’s wan smile briefly lit her face. “I’m not… giving up... Diego.” She looked at him with an amount of the fire he was used to seeing in her eyes. “You’re such a dear… friend, do you… know that?”

Diego would love it if she called him something more than a friend, but he would rather she call him a friend than nothing at all because she was dead. He took her icy hand in both of his and squeezed. “We’ll find the cure, Victoria. I know we will.”

“Of course… we will.”

Z Z Z

No change.

Z Z Z

“Felipe gave me… a rose… this morning,” Victoria confided in Diego a month later.

“He’d only brave this heat wave for you, you know,” Diego said as he gazed intently at his ledger. “He’ll probably skewer me alive for telling you this, but he’s had a crush on you for years.”

Victoria’s smile crept across her face. “I’ve known… for years. He doesn’t have… to skewer you now.” Breathe. “Besides, he’s… teaching me… his signs so… we don’t have so… much trouble… talking.”

Diego smiled, more cheered by this news than he had been in a long time. “What an excellent idea!”

“I’ve started teaching… your father.” Victoria waved her hands in a mimicry of Felipe’s signs.

Diego chose not to tell her what she’d actually said. “Father will be thrilled to start learning more signs. After all, he’ll want to know if Felipe is flirting with his daughter-in-law.” And he held up the rose Felipe had given her. “I’ll take this to the kitchen for some water.”

He disappeared down the passage before he could embarrass himself. His yearning to show his affection to her when he’d said ‘daughter-in-law’ was almost overwhelming, and he’d grabbed the rose as a simple distraction. He was sure he would have simply gazed at Victoria in adulation if he hadn’t abruptly left. One of his deepest desires was always to stare at Victoria, but to remember not to touch her in any way that might be construed as romantic was getting harder and harder. The fact he’d volunteered for this was truly ironic.

Z Z Z

No change.

Z Z Z

Diego stared idly at the ledger lying open on his lap, occasionally stealing looks at his wife asleep even now in the shade of an apple tree. Diego had been caught up in meticulously recording the experiment he and Victoria had conducted that day during the picnic lunch they had taken in the presence of the entire de la Vega staff in the north meadow. Felipe and Don Alejandro were enjoying a complicated game involving balls and sticks with several of the male servants while the female servants gossiped. Diego stared studiously at his ledger now, but surreptitiously eavesdropped instead.

“He’s not fooling anybody,” Maria announced to nobody in particular as she sat eating nuts shelled by the house maids.

Lupé popped a nut into her mouth. “Who do you mean?”

“Young Master Diego, of course,” Maria softly replied with a nod in Diego’s direction.

Benita turned to look. “He’s pretending to look at his book, but he’s staring at her again, isn’t he? At the Mistress.”

“He has been for the last twenty minutes.” Maria dusted her hands together and leaned back on her elbows as if satisfied.

Lupé leaned in close to say, “He’s sweet on her.”

Maria scowled. “Of course he is! But I’ll thank you not to gossip about it.”

“You were just gossiping about it.” Lupé chewed another nut.

“When you’ve worked for The Family as long as I have, then you can gossip. How long have you worked for Patrón? Two years?”

Lupé ignored Maria’s scolding to say, “But what else could it mean?”

Benita cut in, “Of course he’s sweet on her. Anybody with eyes can see that.”

“Then why doesn’t she see that?” Lupé asked.

Maria said, “Oh, I bet she sees more than she lets on. Have you seen how she watches him?”

“But always with that same look on her face, like she’s surprised about something,” Lupé pointed out. “I wonder what she’s thinking?”

Maria’s response was swift. “If she’s smart, she’s thinking she’s caught a great husband, that’s what.”

“Of course she’s smart,” Benita said. “She asked Master Diego to help her right away, didn’t she?”

“I don’t suppose she’ll wait for Zorro anymore,” Lupé pensively said. “He can’t help her with this. Master Diego was a much better bet.”

“I told you not to gossip, Little Lupé,” Maria said with relish.

And right on cue, Lupé scowled. “You know I hate that nickname!”

Marie immediately said, “I’ll not use it anymore if you’ll stop gossiping about things beyond your station.”

“Listen to Maria,” Benita cautioned. “Your tongue will cause you trouble someday.”

Lupé popped another nut in her mouth, then defiantly licked her lips. “I saw Jose helping her out of the carriage last Sunday after Mass.” Then she snorted. “I should say Master Diego wanted to help her out, but Jose beat him to it.”

“Big deal.” Benita yawned. “Half the vaqueros are in love with her.”

Lupé smirked. “The other half are too young to know what they’ve got.”

Maria collected the nuts to place back in the jug they came from. “I asked you not to gossip, and I meant it. Go clean out the kitchen fireplace.”

“What?” Lupé was incensed. “I did that yesterday!”

“And now you’ll do it again, and again until you remember to keep your tongue inside your mouth where it belongs.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“Don Alejandro,” came Maria’s saucy response. “With help from King Ferdinand.”

With a huff, Lupé left.

Diego watched her go from the corners of his eyes, but his gaze snagged on Victoria as the young servant passed under the tree, and he suddenly found himself watching his wife. Perhaps that was why Lupé had walked between him and Victoria in the first place. It was her way of doing what she could for the son of her Patròn.

It was gratifying to Diego to know that all the servants loved Victoria too. The situation with Jose that Lupé had mentioned crossed his mind. Truth be told, he had let Jose reach the carriage first last Sunday so the servant could help Victoria out instead of him. If all he needed to do to encourage everyone to love her as much as he did was step out of the way, he would do it. He didn’t even mind that the servants gossiped about the state of his and Victoria’s relationship. Perhaps she would someday overhear them as he had done today. It wouldn’t hurt her flagging self-confidence to know how much everyone in the house was willing to do for her, how much they loved her.

If loving Victoria was enough to cure her, she would have sauntered out of the hacienda in that first week, completely cured and ready to serve again at the tavern. If only.