QOS CHALLENGE #1

by Lisa Weston
lisa_weston@csufresno.edu

OK. Here goes . . . A rose, Don Quixote and a jar of pickles, eh?

~~~~~

Ah, yes, the exact one. The deep, rich, almost purple red would make a good match for the brocade waistcoat he had chosen this fine day. Colonel Montoya snipped the rose neatly and secured it on the lapel of his dark frock coat. This afternoon he would play the aristocrat rather than the soldier. In the pursuit of political power, urbane implication was a keen rapier often more useful than blunt intimidation.

But first, before he rode out on his errand of polite terrorism... He picked the book off the table and brushed his hand fondly over the weathered cover. Opening it, he smiled at the fading inscription. His father had given him this copy of Don Quixote for his twelfth birthday and he had loved it almost as much as he now loved the Bard's great plays. He had read it and re-read it and read it again, until in his boyish imagination its romance-tinged world seemed more palpable than the dull reality around him. Of course, that was when he was a child, and he had long ago put away childish things. He read the text differently these days. He closed the book and tucked it under his arm, then drew on the black leather riding gloves and smoothed them over his fingers.

"Saddle my horse. Have it waiting for me when I return."

Knowing without looking behind him that the servant was scurrying to carry out his order, Montoya crossed the dusty plaza from the palatial commandante's residence to the small adobe house that served Doctor Helm as both office and home. His curt knock went unanswered, but he opened the door and entered anyway.

"Doctor Helm?"

There was no answer. No one was in the surgery and through an open doorway into the doctor's private quarters he could see the makings of a simple meal spread out on a table. Obviously the physician had been called away suddenly. The colonel grimaced in annoyance; he would have to come back later, then.

The door opened behind him and he turned.

"Colonel Montoya." The mellow, cultivated voice carried the slightest edge of wariness. "Always a pleasure to find you in my home." The doctor's collar was loosened; coatless and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, he hardly looked the well-born, educated man his accent suggested.

"And you, always the dedicated healer. May I at least hope that it was not some hunted criminal this time?"

Helm ignored the jibe. Placing his medical bag on the work bench he sauntered almost defiantly by the colonel into the back room.

"Actually," Montoya continued as he followed him, "I've brought you something." He laid the book on the table next to the food laid out there. A peasant's meal, he noticed idly, or a soldier's, perhaps, rather than the repast of a gentleman: a small basket of the flour tortillas that passed for bread in the pueblo's poorer kitchens; some pale, crumbly cheese; a jar of pickles; a bottle of the rough local wine. How egalitarian--no, how penitential--for someone obviously bred to a better and more civilized life. Someday, Montoya vowed, he would discover exactly what sins required such an exile for their expiation. "You mentioned the other evening that you knew Cervantes only in translation. I thought it might be time for you to read his work in the original." He tapped the cover of the book lightly, lovingly, and turned to leave. "Perhaps it will remind you how dangerous idealism and romantic illusions can be."

THE END

TRIO: Chocolate, quill pen, bloody bible

~~~~~

Short uniform jackets of blue cloth. Flannel breeches in three sizes. Assorted brass buttons for fly closure. Boots. . . . Shaving razors. . . . Sword blades, German, Catalan or Valencian. Bullet molds. Shot for hares and ducks. . . . Six reams of fine white paper. Two 400-sheet blank books. Violin and guitar strings. . . . Five arrobas of ordinary chocolate. Brown sugar. White sugar. Cinnamon. Pepper. Cumin. Cloves. Saffron. A cask of sherry, and another of French brandy. Three boxes of sigarros?

Colonel Montoya picked up the quill pen and scratched through the "3" to replace it with a more puritanical "1". It was Lent, after all; Captain Grisham would just have to learn some self-control, on this point at least.

Children's primers and catechisms for the church. And what was the good doctor requesting for this shipment? Jalapa. Laudanum. White ointment of plain mercury, for wounds. And sweet mercury ointment. That was for syphilis, was it not? Montoya made a mental note to inquire about that. If one or more of this God-fearing town's nonexistent prostitutes was infected, some action would need to be taken.

"Everything seems to be in order." He picked up the pen once more and inscribed his approval and signature, then handed the memoria of requisitions to his waiting clerk. "Send this with the dispatches."

Montoya sighed and leaned back against the carved wooden back of his chair. Surely, he thought, in some corner of Hell his father's spirit must be laughing to see his son, the fine military governor, reduced to little more than one of the scribbling bureaucrats he had scorned so insolently. Or less--a shopkeeper. He opened a drawer on one side of the wide desk and took out the Bible he kept there. His uncle, the soldier in whose gallant footsteps he had followed, had passed it on to him when he was commissioned. He rubbed the rusty brown stains on the cover: the blood of several generations of Montoyas, including his own, spilt in battle or duel. Not in accountancy.

A rough outcry in the plaza broke through his reverie. A pistol shot. And then the inevitable: "The Queen!" Montoya closed his eyes and sighed againas he replaced the book in the drawer. He heard a commotion on the stairs, then a perfunctory knock.

"Colonel--" the soldier began.

"No. Don't tell me. I can guess. Just send Captain Grisham to me when he returns; I'll let him make his excuses in person." Montoya stood and walked over to the window. Outside the dust was just settling behind the pursuing troop. Grisham would fail once more, no doubt. But really, sometimes, considering the alternatives, he could almost thank God for the Queen.

NOTE: The items on this "shopping list" all appear on contemporary requisitions (memorias) and invoices (facturas) from the Presidio of Santa Barbara ca 1800--even the sweet mercury and the violin strings, and especially the chocolate.

A somewhat eccentric response to the third quote option ("On Monsieur's Departure"), the following vignette may not be to everyone's taste. But how could I let a piece of Renaissance amatory rhetoric slip by without response? Perhaps, however, I should NOT have enjoyed that large Mexican Mocha while re-reading Girard on the triangulations of mimetic desire.

Spoilers for "Counterfeit Queen." And depending on the officiousness of your personal smut-police, this may be a bit PGish--for a sort of voyeurism, a suggestion of fetishism, and just the slightest hint of sub-subtext.

~~~~~

If he concentrated, he could almost see the intricate patterns of the mask beneath his fingertips. Ah, sweet, larcenous and dearly, dearly departed Carlotta. The lace was rough to his touch, crudely stitched; it lacked the elegant precision and silken softness he knew would betray the genuine Queen's costume. Cheap. Tawdry even. But sometimes, Luis admitted to his reflection in the mirror, sometimes however ardently one desired the fine and pure, one craved a taste of the tawdry.

Carlotta had been a strategic dalliance, nothing more. Certainly not a lover. They were realists, both of them. Each had each recognized in the other a willingness to bargain, to compromise; each knew instinctively to distrust, knew that neither would hesitate to lie, to sell even their honor, if the need or the profit were great enough. In that, if in nothing else, they had been true to one another.

There was a poem. . . . He searched his memory. Not Shakespeare, nothing that fine, that sophisticated: more simple, commonplace Petrarchan ironies merely. An English Queen's tribute to a once but no longer politically expedient suitor. Dios, but its insincerities echoed truthfully in his own false heart tonight. "I grieve and dare not show my discontent," he whispered, watching his reflection pass the lace between his fingers. "I love and yet am forced to seem to hate. I do, but dare not say I ever meant. I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate."

They all wore so many masks . . . kept so many secrets . . . lived so many falsehoods . . .

He had watched them closely at the fiesta.

Maria Theresa Alvarado had glittered, resplendent in a gown of regal crimson satin this evening, and Robert Helm--well at least his inevitable gray revealed the gentleman beneath his scruffy daytime disguise. She hardly bothered with subtlety as she teased and flirted around him. He, for his part, had been no less obvious in his disdain, his almost arrogant dismissal of the frivolous senorita. But what if, some evening, she should come to him dressed in black silk, a delicate lace shawl thrown about her shoulders? How if guttering candles should cast a tracery of shadows across her face?

Doctor Helm was infatuated with the Queen, of course. How could such a passionate young man, so wounded an idealist not be? And how could one not forgive, again and again, such tragically persistent, tarnished innocence?

Luis stared at himself in the looking glass. Already unbound for the night, dark hair hung loose about his face, just grazing the shoulders of the stark white shirt. Slowly he raised the lace, pulling it momentarily taut before the cold, knowing eyes.

Did they meet on nights like this, his Queen and her suitor? Were they together somewhere even now? Did a shaft of moonlight, not unlike the one that invaded his own bedroom, make their pale flesh gleam in the darkness? Perhaps. And the air would smell of-- Luis lowered the mask. No, not Parma Violets; that was Carlotta's scent. The air would carry instead the sultry decadence of summer roses blown just past their virginal prime. He would leave the mask on, of course, preserving the last pretense of ignorance and anonymity, standing behind her, caressing the strong shoulders, bending his head to press his lips against her throat and taste the life throbbing there. Perhaps they would share a glass of wine--musky, scarlet as blood--and then a kiss as pungently vinous with carnal need. Hands confident and dexterous from swordplay would cup the Doctor's face; two warm, willing bodies would sink into the linen coolness of the bed.

No. Enough. He would be stronger than this. He would exert firmer control over his errant imagination. Luis crumpled the shred of black lace in his fist.

"I'll see you in Hell," Carlotta had promised as she lay dying.

And truly, was this longing not as fiendishly just a Hell as the cruelest God might devise?

END

One more variation on "If I were to take up shroud making . . ."

Spoilers? One brief reference to "Fever"

Warnings? At least one "Eeew, gross!" moment, a couple of instances of sexual innuendo, rampant Grisham abuse.

But I mean well.

~~~~~

Grisham tossed the fry bread back into the basket. God, what he wouldn't give this morning for some of his mother's biscuits. Not that they were, really, that good: eaten plain, they often possessed a peculiar, alkaline aftertaste. But with some of her sausage gravy . . . now, that was a breakfast. The food back home was one of the things he missed most about his new life in Alta California.

Still, he reminded himself, things could be much worse. He was alive, wasn't he? And he wasn't in jail, was he? There might even be a chance for advancement, if he got lucky. Or was clever enough. Though lately he hadn't seemed to show much cleverness, nagged a little voice which sounded disturbingly like Colonel Montoya at his most snide. Grisham cursed under his breath and pushed away from the table.

As he passed through the barracks courtyard some of his men even managed to come alert and salute him. That was something. He was never sure whether their usual informality was a lack of proper military discipline or of personal respect. He knew that few of them were pleased to take orders from a non-Spaniard; it was one more hold the Colonel had over him.

"All right, Costales," he ordered, moving into the jail office. "Let's see the roster from last night." Yesterday had been payday; there would have been more than a couple of incidents, so fines would have to be levied, punishment details doled out. And he was in the mood to be severe. Grisham read over the page of arrest notations. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk and disorderly--fighting over a whore. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk while on duty. Drunk. "Rosas did what? He assaulted a mule? You mean he hit it with a stick, or--"

"No, Capitan. He--" The sergeant looked embarrassed. Grisham grinned; this had to be good. "He--" the soldier supplied a course, vulgar verb and punctuated his explanation with a rather graphic gesture.

Grisham's grin faded. This was not good. Not good at all. This was something that would have to be reported to Montoya. The Colonel was not going to be pleased, and somehow, somehow, it was all going to turn out to be the Captain's fault.

At least Private Rosas had shown the decency to dictate a confession, so that might make the conversation somewhat easier. Grisham gathered up the documents and slipped them inside his uniform jacket. Was there a subtle way to introduce a subject like this? ("Speaking of bestiality...?") He walked slowly by the church, pausing outside to offer a brief prayer for Divine intervention, for something, anything, to postpone making his report, and set his foot upon the stairs of the Comandancia.

"Captain Grisham! A moment of your time, please."

Now he knew God was laughing at him. Grisham and Helm had taken an instantaneous dislike to each other, and the way Montoya seemed to let the doctor get away with almost anything really rankled. Why? Just because the arrogant Englishman could probably talk about Shakespeare? Well, maybe the business with the fever and the willow bark medicine and the assassination attempt and the exploded office and all was a factor, but it wasn't fair. Nor was it fair that most of the town's ladies--even Vera, damn it, not to mention Tessa Alvarado, who should have been his own ticket to wealth and power--had been immediately smitten with a guy who seemed uninterested in any woman. Except maybe the Queen.

"I wanted to talk to you about the number of your men currently unfit for duty," Helm continued as he drew near.

Grisham barely listened to the catalogue of complaints. "And your point is?" He really didn't have the patience to deal with this right now. "Maybe my men would have fewer injuries if your masked lady friend was a little more careful where she stuck her sword." Helm drew back a step and gaped at him. "And while we're on that topic," Grisham continued, taking advantage of his small victory. "I was thinking--"

Helm's eyes glinted dangerously. "I'm afraid I can't help you there, Captain," he remarked with deceptive lightness. "Miracles are matters of faith, not science."

There was a heartbeat's silence between them before Grisham grabbed him and threw him against the wall. "Listen, you son of a bitch," he grated out, angling his forearm across the Doctor's throat and leaning forward slightly, exerting just enough of a choke hold to emphasize his point. "I have to take that sort of shit from Montoya. I don't have to take it from you."

Speak of the Devil . . . "Really, gentlemen. Such a vulgar display." The Colonel's menacingly genial voice floated down from the landing above them. "Grisham, would you care to unhand my physician?" Grisham loosened his hold, and Helm shook him off. "And now, Doctor, no doubt you have patients waiting? Capitan," he ordered with a wave of his hand, his voice darkening.

Great. Now he'd annoyed the Colonel once again, and right at the moment he most needed him in a good mood. Could this day get any worse? He followed his commander up the stairs, trailing behind him through the hall and into the office. Montoya took his seat behind the desk; Grisham thought it wiser to stand more or less at attention. Especially since he hadn't been asked to sit down.

"Do you know," the Colonel began slowly, picking up a paper knife and toying with it as he spoke, "how rare it is for an outpost like ours to have a real physician? Hmmm?"

"With respect sir." Montoya narrowed his eyes and tapped the point of the knife on the desk: clearly he wasn't to be placated so easily, but it had been worth a try. "There's, ah, something that happened last night. . . " Montoya put the paper knife down and held out one elegant hand without a word. Grisham pulled the arrest reports out of his jacket. He handed them over and tried to find some sign of personal salvation in the ceiling's mottled plaster.

"My, my. Your men do seem somewhat given to drunkenness and dissolution. Perhaps you do not provide them with the moral guidance they--" There was the sound of paper shuffling. "I see. Very well." When Grisham looked back, the Colonel was writing something on a clean sheet of paper. "I will arrange for this Rosas to spend some time in penance with the good fathers up at the mission. When his soul is suitably prepared, you will arrange for his execution."

"Oh come on. I mean, this is really sick, but he's just a young kid. He got drunk and stupid and--"

"Perhaps in your uncivilized homeland, Grisham, such acts against God and nature are laughing matters. But here we obey Spanish law, and the laws of his most Catholic Majesty are both clear and just. This boy should be grateful that his death will be quick. I assure you, the days are not long past when the Office of the Inquisition would have demanded much sterner punishments."

The Inquisition? For one brief, horrific instant he could imagine Montoya in the dark robes of an Inquisitor. Not that he had ever seen an Inquisitor, of course, but he remembered when he was a boy and his pastor would go on and on about the torture of good Protestant martyrs and Papist idolatry. When he grew a little older he'd found out about the cheap romances where pure, young heroines lay bound at the mercy of cruel . . . But what was Montoya saying now?

" . . . bring me the mule."

It was one of those moments when everything happens in slow motion, when you can see the bullet coming and yet are unable to move out of the way. As if from a distance, he saw the smile form on his own face. "Sure," he heard himself say, "but I wouldn't have thought it was your type."

Afterwards Grisham could not explain why he was still alive. He wasn't even certain that being alive was such a good thing.

Montoya had insisted, of course, that the Captain go in person to arrest the mule. Evidently under Spanish law it, too, was subject to execution. Its outraged owner had demanded as much compensation as if it had been a member of the family, and the bargaining had been long and tedious. The damn mule, as if conscious of the fate awaiting it, had not come with them quietly, and had kicked one of his men in the groin.

When they had managed to get the stubborn creature back to the guard house, that should have been that. But no. Didn't the Queen of Swords just have to break Rosas out of jail? And guess who had chase her over half the territory? He could have predicted, by that time, that they would lose her in La Luna canyon. Given the way the rest of his day had been going it was all but inevitable. But not, of course, before she had inflicted three glancing sword cuts, grazed two men with pistol shot, pulled one off his horse with her whip, and generally battered a couple of others.

The bedraggled and defeated troop had limped back into town. By this point in his afternoon he had been completely unsurprised to see not only Helm standing in the doorway to his clinic, but Montoya beside him. As they passed he had heard the Colonel say something about "bruise-ed arms"--Shakespeare, probably--and the Doctor had smirked, and leaned forward to say something that made Montoya smile. That had never boded well.

So now Grisham closed the door to his room firmly behind him and sank back against the wood, wishing he could shut this day away as easily. He wanted his dinner. He wanted his bed. He wanted . . .

"Marcus. You are so late," Vera scolded him. With everything that had happened he had completely forgotten that it was one of their afternoons. And Vera did not take forgetfulness well.

"Please, darling, you don't know the day I've had . . ."

"Oh, Marcus," she purred a little later, after listening to his tale of woe and allowing him to persuade her to forgive his tardiness. She had demanded they play Amazon Princess and Captured Warrior, and fortunately his tongue had proved sufficiently eloquent in its non-verbal pleading. "My poor Marcus. How does the saying go? 'If I were to take up shroud making, men would stop dying. If I sold candles, the sun would never set.'"

He chuckled as he moved his lips over the pale, sweet skin of her breast. Maybe this day would turn out alright after all.

If only they could ignore the frenzied knocking on his door. "Capitan! Capitan!" a voice was shouting. "That devil of a mule, it has escaped!"

******

Note: The incident of Rosas (and the mule) is drawn from the history of Spanish California. Without a Queen to rescue him, Jose Antonio Rosas, 18, was executed by firing squad on 11 February 1801. The mule didn't escape either, I'm afraid. The story can be found in the records of the Presidio of Santa Barbara.

I tried for smut- and angst-free. I really did. Unfortunately, THIS is what has been stuck in my head ....

So, WARNING. There is something of the erotic in here. And there's a little kinkiness as well. OK, a lot. (The trio is rope, knife and bed-post.) OK, OK, it's sick and very twisted, and weird in a metaphysical poetry/Counter-Reformation baroque way, which is probably even worse. If the title evokes some vague memory of an English Lit class, it's probably because I stole it from the end of John Donne's Holy Sonnet 14 ("Batter my heart, three-personed God"):

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Seriously. Rating at least PG. I apologize in advance if this pushes the envelope; you really may want to delete now.
Oh, and spoilers for "The Serpent".

~~~~~

Robert Helm stared up at the painting on the church wall. La Mano Poderosa de Dios, the Powerful Hand of God. He knew the prayer the townspeople made before it. "In the midst of my despair and anguish, O God, I beseech You to aid me with Your almighty power." But as much as he might hope to see it as they did, as a hand outstretched to offer aid and comfort, he could only see its rust-brown palm bleeding ever anew with the lives he had taken. And truth be told, sometimes he longed for it to strike him with its power, to punish him as a severe but loving parent should.

He could hear the sound of drums outside, and the roar of a crowd. What was going on? He stood up and walked through the chill silence of the dim and empty church into the harsh sunlight of the plaza.

There was to be an execution, he realized. How could he have forgotten that? The gallows had been set up, the populace assembled to see the malefactor pay for his crimes. Colonel Montoya had already taken his place, seated confidently, regally, in his throne-like chair before the scaffold, ready to dispense justice. Helm began to push through the crowd.

As he drew closer he could finally make out the identity of the criminal. The Queen? NO! He shouted out his denial and broke into a run, shoving out of his way the bodies which blocked him. No, he could not let this happen, not to her. She was innocent. Suddenly unobstructed he stumbled forward and fell at the Colonel's booted feet. "No," he cried again. "I'm the one. I'm the murderer."

"Indeed. So you are willing to take her place? Such self-sacrifice. Very well, then. If you are sure?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure." And suddenly he was on the scaffold, removing the noose from around her neck, cutting her bound hands free with a knife--her knife, he noted without amazement or wonder, the same one he had thrown to kill El Serpiente. Her dark eyes looked steadily into his and then, as on that afternoon, she cradled his face between her hands, leaned in and kissed him. He reached for her, to return her embrace, to kiss her as passionately and deeply as he had desired. He wanted to carry her kiss on his lips, branded into his soul, to whatever hell awaited him. But she was gone. Other hands than hers were binding him, dragging him to the post, forcing the rope over his head.

He looked up into the cloudless blue of the infinite sky. He should say a prayer, commend his soul to God, something. But there were no words.

"Are you ready to die for her, Robert?"

Montoya was on the scaffold now, one arm draped around the Queen, his hand resting with intimate, insolent possession on her hip. And she--his dark angel, his zealous virgin--

"Really, now, Robert. Do you think her virtue, her innocence were ever yours to protect? Such pride! And such self-delusion. Is it, after all, her purity you dream of at night? Or is it this?"

Montoya trailed a finger slowly and deliberately down the line of pale skin revealed where the black silk gaped above the tight lacings of the Queen's corset. He bowed his head and kissed her there, where her flesh swelled responsively beneath his tongue.

Helm closed his eyes. He felt the hemp press harshly against his larynx, cutting off any further cries. He choked, the last of the air paradoxically leaden in his lungs. He felt himself kick free of the earth . . .

And sat up gasping, clawing at his throat.

"Shhh. Easy now. It was just a nightmare." A lover's hands stroked his hair, then strong arms embraced him and drew him back into warmth and safety.

"Just a dream."
"Only that. I have you, you know. You're safe here." A soft kiss brushed his forehead. "Will it help to tell me about it?"

"I was being hanged. And I deserved it. I do deserve it. I've killed so many."

"And healed. Don't forget that."

"But I vowed never to take another life. And now I've killed again."

"Only to save the life of someone you care for, someone you would die yourself to protect."

"Someone I lust after. There's nothing sacred, nothing noble or honorable in that. The dream was right; I deserve to be punished." He looked up into the bright, beneficent eyes. "Punish me. Please?"

"If that's what you need."

Helm closed his eyes and willed himself to lie as still as death. He felt soft hands rearrange his body on the clean, cool linen. He felt his arms raised above his head, his wrists tied to the bed-posts with slender, silken ropes. He felt the first caress of the knife point tracing its path over his sternum, the sharp sting of it piercing his guilty flesh, the transient warmth of his life-blood trickling out in its wake. And he knew that all he had to do was ask, and healing kisses would follow. All he had to do was whisper a name. But he couldn't.

"This is a dream, too, isn't it? This isn't real."

"It could be, Robert."

He shook his head. Tears welled up behind his eyelids as he slipped back into a deeper, dreamless void.

He woke with the sun streaming in his window and the miscellaneous sounds of normal life faint but comfortingly obvious around him: the creak of the wooden wheels of the carretas, the rough cries of vendors in the plaza, and from somewhere the off-key voice of a woman singing as she went about her morning tasks. He got up, walked over to the basin and ewer on the table, and splashed cold water on his face. Another day. He looked into the small, cracked mirror on the wall; his eyes were red with weeping. He remembered, now, sitting in the shade of the cantina's veranda. Drinking a wine as red as blood, though apparently not, alas, enough to drive away the dreams. Forcing himself to keep vigil as across the open square the Serpent's body dangled, tied to the post with the hangman's rope, with the Colonel's knife plunged into his black heart.

THE END

QUOTE CHALLENGE Montoya and Milton? A match made in ummm....

I couldn't help myself. So. Egregious quotation--all of it, like the challenge quote, from Satan's speeches in Book One of Paradise Lost--plus a little irony and some foreshadowing.

~~~~~

Colonel Montoya shielded his eyes with one raised hand and squinted through the heat haze leaching all color from the landscape. Below them the road from Monterey--El Camino Real,the Royal Road, they called it, though it was little better than a rutted cattle track--twisted down through a canyon and out across the plain. Off in the distance the brown desert shrub gave way to the first signs of the faded, struggling green fields of what would have to pass as civilization in this benighted place. A gust of wind tugged at his neatly bound hair and he passed his hand unconsciously over his brow to smooth it back into place. Even the wind brought no relief from the heat. He could feel the sweat trickling down the small of his back, the linen of his once crisp shirt growing limp, the serge of his uniform breeches sticking uncomfortably against the backs of his thighs. They had paused to rest and water the horses before beginning the final stretch of their journey. They would arrive soon. The moment seemed to call for some commemoration.

"'Hail, horrors,'" he began with an expansive, theatrical gesture. "'Hail, infernal world, and thou, profoundest Hell, receive thy new possessor.'"

"Shakespeare, Sir?"

Montoya grimaced. "No, Grisham. Not Shakespeare this time. Milton. Yet another treasure of your English literature of whom you seem completely oblivious."

"Yeah, well, I'm not English, and I never had much time for poetry."

"No, I suppose not," Montoya murmured, turning back to his coach. It wasn't, after all, culture and sophistication that had recommended the American to him. He had hardly expected a soul mate. No, the man's dubious past, those crimes that had driven him friendless and fortuneless so far from home, and his consequent necessary reliance on a master's favor: these, his venal amorality and his brutality would make the new Capitan the perfect instrument of the Colonel's will. Poetry and art and music would most likely have to remain solitary pleasures. He had been so lucky to find amid the desolation of war and the wilderness of the Cordillera one comrade with whom he could share such private joys. He treasured his memories, but did not look for similar luck in this place. English gentlemen spies schooled to saffron a deadly ruthlessness with urbanity and charm were really too much to hope for here.

He remounted the carriage and settled back as it jerked and rattled back into motion. The interior was dim and stuffy, but to open the curtains any further was to invite the choking dust inside.

The Colonel had few illusions about Alta California. Even in Spain they told the story of how the place had driven its first master mad. The gallant and ambitious Visitador-general Jose de Galvez, they said, had imported Guatemalan apes and dressed them as soldiers. Of course, from what he had seen of the local troops so far he wondered whether the plan had been so mad after all. California. Ha! The place had nothing beside the name to link it to the island the Exploits of Esplandin placed so close to the terrestrial paradise. He would hardly find here an Amazon Califia, a dark-haired and sultry Queen.

But California had some commercial and strategic importance, nevertheless. Especially now. Spain was losing control of her colonies, despite the way that after years of benign neglect she was reasserting her firm hand, her claim upon resources so badly needed in the wake of war. Besides, what better opportunity, what better prize could she offer the heroes who had fought for her so valiantly? Santa Helena. Montoya could remember the blatant, patronizing smirk on the Minister's face as he offered the posting. Oh, yes. The Emperor's exile was quite fresh enough to make clear exactly what this command meant: ironic reward for his presumption, punishment for his embarrassing efficiency. A younger Lieutenant Montoya had been among the first to join the revolt against French occupation in '08. It was not entirely zeal and idealism that had driven him even then, of course. He had learned early how little he might expect in the normal course of advancement. His family was not quite noble enough, his fortune not large enough. And he had committed the unforgivable sin of showing himself more clever than his "betters." As he could have predicted, the Spanish army had offered little enough threat on the field of war. The less regular, more improvisational and on occasion far more brutal guerrilla (for that was the word they had coined, "little war") had won more success but less admiration. Its heroes were men to be reckoned with, no doubt, but not to be glorified. Men to be employed at a distance, where their grasp of the expedient would profit Madrid without requiring Royal complicity or approval.

Be it so. Montoya smiled grimly to himself as his coach rumbled through the dust and heat toward his new command. He would be damned if he let this place defeat--if he would let this opportunity escape him. For opportunity it could be if he were strong enough to seize it. All is not lost, he reminded himself. The unconquerable will--how did the poet put it?--and courage never to submit or yield, and what is else not to be overcome? There had been enough time to plan on the long voyage to Vera Cruz and then overland to Mexico City, to San Blas, and the dispatch ship up the coast to Monterey. There had been enough information to be drawn out of the fool of a local viceroy and his ignorant, petty courtiers. There would be a moment to act, to make his move. Until then he would marshal his forces, consolidate his control. With patience and discipline--and the good gardener's ruthless resolve to prune where pruning was needed--he would make roses bloom in this desert. "'To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell,'" he quoted into the dimness. "'Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.'"

A slight change in momentum drew his attention away from his rambling meditations. They were entering the pueblo. They drew to a halt, and as the dust settled and his aide dismounted to open his door, Montoya adjusted the cuffs on his uniform tunic and prepared to meet his new subjects. A small and relatively well-dressed group stood in the shade of a building he assumed to be his headquarters. The one in front, a distinguished, greying gentleman with the confident pride of a nobleman, would be the most prominent landowner, their spokesman. Montoya noted with brief, speculative appreciation the envious glances the man's companions, his erstwhile friends, cast upon him. Oh yes, there would be much to work with here.

"Colonel Montoya," the don bowed formally in greeting. "I am Rafael Alvarado. Welcome to Santa Helena."

END

Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Maybe the cat spiked my coffee this morning. Whatever.

Something short and pointless employing the trio (necklace, iron rod and Mission) and the proverb. PGish because of suggestive language, I think. Slight spoiler for the end of "End of Days."

~~~~~

The problem with reading pornography in a foreign language, Marcus Grisham sighed to himself, was the way the body's response had to wait upon the mind's translation.

He tossed the book aside and lay back on his bed. Oh, well, when in Rome... Or more to the point, when in a Spanish colony, you had to make do with Spanish porn. He closed his eyes and concentrated on replaying the scenario he had just read in his own vernacular, as it were--which meant, these days, involving a certain black-clad bandita. Ummm... Oh yes, that would do nicely. With his mind's eye (okay, maybe his mind wasn't exactly the organ most interested in this) he could see her stretched out, spread-eagled and tied to a bed, gagged with that red scarf of hers as she had gagged him. Such a pity: he could think of more entertaining uses for her mouth, but even his imaginary Queen tended to complain and insult, at least at first. He hooked a knife point just under the top lacing of the corset and tugged upwards. There was a satisfying snick! as the lace yielded, and he paused a moment before moving to the next. Slowly, slowly, he reminded himself, smiling and giving himself over to the pleasure of the images.

The stentorian knock on his door brought him out of his fantasy abruptly, with the wrong kind of jerk. "Go away. I'm off duty."

"Not any more, Grisham." The door began to open.

Christ, but the Colonel had the worst timing. Marcus scrambled to pull himself together and get off the bed before his commander could make it much further into the room. Under the circumstances he decided not to tuck in his shirt.

"I trust I am not interrupting anything important?"

"No, sir. I was just...reading."

"Reading? Really, wonders never cease." Colonel Montoya picked up the discarded book and opened its tattered cover. "Ah, I see. Virginia the Vestal, or the Pleasure-Slave of the Legion" He ruffled through the pages. "I had no idea you were interested in Roman history."

"It's supposed to be based on Suetonious." Yeah, like that was believable. "It's not all smut. There's this incident with Caligula and a pearl necklace and an iron rod..." Marcus frowned. He hadn't been paying very close attention at that point in the novel, and now that he thought about it, the phrase might have been "rod of iron" and...oh, shit. "So," he concluded lamely. "I could lend it to you."

"No, thank you, Capitan." Montoya laid the book aside with a gesture of delicate disgust. "I doubt our tastes in such literature coincide."

"Yeah," Marcus muttered to himself. "Notice the lack of surprise on _my_ face."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing, sir. Ah, there was a reason...?"

"I have a job for you. When you have finished...reading."

"Go out and pursue the Queen?" Damn. Even to his own ears that sounded rather too eager.

"No, Grisham." Montoya cast him a shrewd and yet slightly amused look. "I think we'll leave that to Sergeant Perez for the time being. He seems less preoccupied. No," he repeated. "I'm sending you up to the Mission for a few days. Escort duty. I had meant it to be a little vacation for you. But perhaps," he added, eyeing the lurid little volume, "you could use your time with the good padres for sober reflection on the state of your soul."

"The state of my soul?!?" Marcus sputtered when he alone once more. Like the only reason the Colonel might escape Hell wasn't because he had the Devil shit-scared he'd take over. Marcus flopped back on the bed. Oh well, things could be worse. After all, he thought, grinning widely and hungrily, who knew but maybe the Queen would decide she needed to investigate his actions this time? Maybe he would even find an entertaining way to return her red sash. Wasn't that what the proverb promised? Follow love and it will flee; flee love and it will follow thee. Though in this case he wasn't at all sure "love" was the best translation.

END

Contains mentions of a necklace, an iron rod and a Mission (okay, I did finesse and fudge a bit on "iron rod," but both words are in here) as well as the Shakespeare quote (twice). A bit long, but I got carried away. Oh, and it does come within hailing distance of slash. Sort of. In a harmless, absolutely no sex involved, theoretical way.

~~~~~

"Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."

"Patient yourself, and pardon me." Colonel Montoya echoed Titus' response to the plea without looking up from the documents before him. He picked up his pen and signed with a flourish. Still holding the quill he regarded his visitor. "In your place," he added mildly, "I would have chosen to quote Portia rather than the 'barbarous Tamora.' Subtext, my dear Doctor: the irony of that sentiment from the most unmerciful queen of the Goths quite undercuts your argument."

Ostensibly returning an undivided attention to the papers on his desk, Montoya glanced up to watch Robert Helm rise from his chair and begin to pace. "A man's life is at stake, and you're quibbling about Shakespearian quotation?" Once again the good Doctor had come to argue some cause with the Colonel, and once again tempers--or at least his temper--was beginning to flare. For today the Colonel appeared unwilling to play along with this familiar little game, and his lack of cooperation was showing every sign of making the Doctor more passionate. He stopped pacing and leaned over the desk, resting both hands on its edge. "Eduardo Gomez--"

"Was found with Senora Ortega's necklace in his possession," Montoya explained patiently. He replaced the pen carefully.

"A present--"

"Really? From a rich dona to a poor ranchero?" Montoya stood up to meet the Doctor's eyes. "What can you be suggesting? Senora Ortega claims theft. Surely you do not question a lady's honesty? She also charges rape. The young man's life is forfeit, Doctor: the lady's husband's honor, if not her her own, demands no less. Under the circumstances Gomez should be grateful," he added in a calculatedly jocular tone, emerging from behind the desk and approaching the other man more closely. "A simple hanging is so much more merciful than the punishment Don Manuel might desire, I do assure you."

"Rape? Theft?" Helm straightened and turned toward him, his voice rising in even more open anger. "Payment for services rendered, you mean. Half the town has seen the way she--"

"Doctor Helm," Montoya interrupted sternly. "I strongly suggest you take more care what you say about the wife of one of the territory's wealthiest and most powerful ranchers."

"Oh yes, that's what's at stake here, isn't it? That's your precious Law. Tell me, Colonel. How much is Ortega paying you to murder his wife's lover?"

"Doctor Helm!" Montoya finally allowed his own matching passion to surface. "I will warn you only once more."

"Can you really whore your command so--"

"Guard!"

"Now what?" The Doctor's voice dropped into a sneer. "Are you going to have me escorted home again? Sending me to my room without my supper? You're not my bloody father!"

"No. I am not. But since you insist on exhibiting such adolescent belligerence... Spare the rod and spoil the child, isn't that what the Bible warns?" Montoya took another step toward him. "I have put up with your insolence for far too long," he growled. "I have indulged your insubordination and ignored your constant undermining of my legal authority. I have overlooked your nearly constant aiding and abetting notorious criminals and fugitives. No more." He stepped back and turned toward the guard. "The Doctor is under arrest, Corporal." He calmly resumed his seat behind the desk. "Bind his hands and take him to our jail. Oh, and Corporal," he added with almost gleeful sweetness as he met Helm's glare with one of his own. "If he resists, you have my full permission to punish him as you see fit."

He waited until the guard had hustled the fuming Doctor out of his office, then crossed the room and slipped out on to the balcony in time to watch them crossing the plaza toward the stockade. Many eyes followed the pair's progress--it was market day, after all. But where?... Ah, there, partially hidden in the fitful shade of the cantina's veranda, Senorita Alvarado stood watching with the rest. Montoya stepped back inside. He grinned and rubbed his hands together contentedly. He did so love it when a plan came together.

~~~~~

A FEW HOURS LATER.......

Montoya gazed with some satisfaction at the rumpled figure stretched out on the cell's narrow and no doubt far from comfortable bed. Doctor Helm lifted the arm he had thrown across his eyes.

"Come to gloat, Colonel?"

"Merely hoping you have come to your senses." Montoya gestured for the guard to open the door. "Come. This is no place for a gentleman. Join me for supper, eh? Who knows, but you may yet persuade me with your arguments. Sweet mercy is, after all, nobility's true badge, no?"

Helm sat up, swinging his legs off the cot. Slowly and silently he crossed the space between them. He stopped for a moment in front of the Colonel and it seemed as if he were preparing some sharp reply, some comment on Montoya's resemblance to Titus Andronicus' cruel and bloody empress, some invocation perhaps of "her sacred wit to villainy consecrate." But in the end he merely brushed by him with a familiar insolence and sauntered down the corridor.

In another cell the unfortunate Garcia grasped hold of the iron bars. "Colonel, please, I beg you. I am innocent! I swear by all the saints! By God's Holy Mother herself!"

Montoya rolled his eyes, turned on his heel and followed the Doctor's retreating form.

The long early summer twilight was just settling upon the now quiet town. In the Rose Courtyard the sweetness of night-blooming jasmine mixed with the exhalations of the Colonel's much-prized blooms in the dulcet evening air. The table had been laid, as he had ordered, for a private, light supper.

"My cook is quite gifted, you know," Montoya remarked, guiding Helm to a chair and pouring him a glass of the local rioja. "Sometimes I might almost believe myself back in Spain. And yet she came to one of my predecessors here as a Mission girl, born a heathen and raised by the good padres at the rancheria on God knows what--beans and acorn mush, one hears. She is quite the Spaniard now, a devout Christian woman, with two sons in the garrison." He filled his own glass and sat. "To Civilization," he offered in toast, "however tenuous its hold may appear in this savage land."

Helm raised his glass politely to share the toast and took a drink. "So this is supposed to convince me that you are right in hanging poor Gomez?"

Montoya sighed. His physician was nothing if not persistent. "Even as we speak that young man is taking to the road on a serviceable if expendable horse, with thirty reales in his pocket and admonition never to revisit our fair pueblo."

"You let him go?" Helm lowered his glass. "Thank you."

The Colonel inclined his head slightly. "As you said, Senora Ortega's interest in him had not gone unnoticed. It seems, moreover, that the lady indulges a taste for rough trade. Indeed, one or two of my own soldiers have enjoyed her favors in the past. The luridness of their confessions! Really, one was quite shocked. And grieved to have to share one's knowledge with the husband. I understand, by the way, that the senora will also be leaving us soon, on a prolonged visit with her family."

"You knew? From the beginning?"

"There is little that happens in Santa Helena of which I am not aware."

Helm smiled a little smugly, slyly as he helped himself to some of the food. "Except perhaps the identity of the Queen of Swords?"

"Oh, and are you so sure I do not have my suspicions even there?"

"Really? Who?" That wide-eyed, blandly innocent and open look had no doubt beguiled many an unwitting opponent, but the Colonel only smiled. Helm shrugged. "So what of Senor Ortega?"

"Senor Ortega is a proud man, but wise enough to know when matters are best left in silence. As it stands, even rumors have tarnished his reputation and lessened his influence among the dons. A horse, a few coins, and some other trivial concessions are so small a price to safeguard what is left of his honor."

"Then why? Why this charade?"

As if on cue, with all the delightfully expected coincidence of melodrama, the night's peace was broken by a furious clatter of hoof-beats, a smattering of rile shots and the inevitable cry of "la Reina!"

"I see." Helm drew the obvious conclusion. "Garcia was bait." Montoya nodded and waited for further awareness to dawn. "I was bait."

"Of course. I had to be sure the Queen would play her part in this little comedy. Rank injustice. And the man she loves cast into durance vile. It was sure to get her attention. And now she will bear the credit--or the blame--of freeing a man who must, at least officially, remain branded a thief and a rapist. Neatly done, wouldn't you agree?" The Colonel smiled more broadly.

"But you needn't worry, Doctor," he went on. "She will get away: I put Grisham in charge of her capture. It is a pity, but I fear the gallant capitan has developed somewhat of a fondness for your masked lady." He reached across the table to refill the Doctor's glass. "Inevitable, I suppose. Argument and aggression so easily become courtship and foreplay, after all. Think of Beatrice and Benedick: lovers 'too wise to woo peaceably.'"

Helm narrowed his eyes warily. "I have always preferred Viola and Rosalind."

"And Portia? Ah, yes, the breeches part. Why am I not surprised? But tell me, have you never considered how queer it is that the Bard's heroines must court their husbands as young men? No? It is as I told you, my dear Doctor," he announced, raising his glass in a second toast. "It's all a matter of subtext."

END