Chapter 1 #2
"From today, your only family will be the army, your only mother will be Spain, and your only master will be me. Forget the mud — you now belong to the glory of the Kingdom."
With a sharp command of the spurs, Don Luiz set his horse charging, raising a vast curtain of dust that enveloped the square, while the cavalry followed him toward the camp at the edge of the village. Alejandro remained frozen in the same spot, watching the dust slowly settle.
He looked back and saw his father on his knees in the dirt, gathering up the silver coin that would guarantee his siblings' sustenance for more than a year.
He looked down at his own calloused peasant hands.
The dream had begun, but the silent clock of four hours was already running.
The destiny that would carry him to the secret sands of Egypt and, decades later, to the bloody massacres and miracles of the missions of Mexico, had just been sealed with blood, silver, and dust.
That afternoon, once the drums had gone quiet and the names of the chosen had been recorded in the Crown's ledgers, Alejandro walked alone to the small olive grove he had tended since childhood.
Castile's dry wind passed through the silvery leaves of the trees, producing a soft sound that had always seemed to him like a distant conversation. For years that place had been his entire world. Every stone of the ground was known to him. Every curve of the hill held a memory.
He found Gaspar kneeling near an old trunk, sharpening a pruning tool. For a few moments neither of them spoke.
The father kept working.
The son remained standing.
Finally Gaspar broke the silence.
"Your mother is crying."
Alejandro lowered his eyes. "I know."
"Your brothers too." More silence.
"I know."
Gaspar rested the tool on the ground and raised his eyes to his son.
"And you?"
The question caught him off guard.
Alejandro took a few seconds to answer.
"I'm afraid."
Gaspar let out a short laugh.
"Good."
"Good?"
"Men without fear die young. Men who feel fear learn to survive."
Alejandro studied his father for a moment.
The deep wrinkles, the hands ruined by labor, the shoulders bent by life, seemed heavier than ever.
"I wanted to be able to help all of you."
Gaspar rose slowly.
"You already have."
He held up the silver coin he had received from Don Luiz.
The metal gleamed in the late-afternoon light.
"This coin will feed your family for many months."
The old man's eyes grew moist.
"But that isn't why I accepted losing my son."
Alejandro felt a knot in his throat.
Gaspar placed a hand on his shoulder.
"When I was your age, I wanted to leave too. I wanted to see the world beyond these hills."
He looked toward the horizon.
"I didn't have the courage."
Then he turned his eyes back to Alejandro. "You will."
Gaspar stayed silent for a few moments, gazing at the golden horizon stretching beyond the hills of Castile.
Then he reached into the inner pocket of his old wool waistcoat and drew out an object wrapped in a piece of cloth already yellowed by time.
"There's something I never told you in full, Alejandro."
The young man frowned.
Gaspar carefully unwrapped the cloth. Inside it was an old ring of silver darkened by time. Engraved on the worn surface was the crest of a fox reared up on its hind legs.
Alejandro recognized the symbol.
He had seen it a few times before, in an old chest kept by his mother.
"The De La Vega crest."
Gaspar nodded.
"Long before I was born, our name carried weight in this land."
The old man turned the ring between his fingers.
"Your great-grandfather owned vineyards, fertile lands, and horses. The De La Vegas were welcomed at the finest tables in Castile. We weren't nobles, but there was respect. When a De La Vega spoke, men listened."
Alejandro watched in silence.
It was the first time his father had spoken of this in such detail.
"So what happened?"
A sad smile crossed Gaspar's face.
"War. Taxes. Bad harvests. Greedy men. Sometimes a family takes generations to build a fortune and only a few years to lose it."
He gestured at the olive trees around them.
"By the time I was born, it was all already gone. There was no land to inherit. No gold. No prestige."
The old man's voice grew heavier.
"Only debts and memories."
The wind blew through the trees.
Gaspar faced his son with a rare intensity.
"I spent my whole life trying to win back a little of what was lost."
He looked at his own calloused hands.
"But some battles start too late."
Alejandro felt a tightness in his chest. "Are you saying you failed?"
"No."
Gaspar shook his head.
"I'm saying that perhaps I was born to prepare the way for someone better."
The old man's eyes grew moist.
"Perhaps I was born so that you could reach where I never could."
Silence settled over the field.
Then Gaspar placed the ring in his son's hand.
"Take this."
"I can't."
"You can, and you will."
His voice came out firm.
"The name De La Vega once meant something in this Spain. Today we are just forgotten peasants. But you are about to walk a road no man in our family has walked in generations."
Alejandro closed his fingers around the ring.
"And if I fail?"
Gaspar stepped forward.
"Then fail trying something great."
The old man pointed toward the horizon.
"But if you win... don't win only for yourself."
His voice fell almost to a whisper. "Win for every De La Vega who came before us."
Alejandro felt the weight of the ring in his palm.
For the first time since the drums had reached the village, he understood that he was not leaving merely to change his own life.
He was carrying with him the last chance to restore a name that had once been respected across all of Spain. And he swore silently that the De La Vegas would be remembered again.
Before his departure, his mother Rita opened a hidden compartment beneath a floorboard and retrieved a small bundle wrapped in linen.
"Your father keeps the ring," she said. "I kept this."
Carefully, she unfolded a piece of paper yellowed with age.
Alejandro studied the elegant, uneven handwriting.
"What is it?"
"A letter from your great-grandfather."
The young man's eyes widened.
Rita ran her fingers over the page with affection.
"It was written back when the De La Vegas still owned land. When there were still horses in the stables and servants working for the family."
She smiled sadly.
"Your grandmother gave me this on the day I married your father."
Alejandro took the paper carefully.
The ink had faded, but a few lines could still be read.
"Fortune is a fickle visitor. Today she sits at our table; tomorrow she may seek shelter in another house. But honor remains only with those who refuse to sell it."
The young man read the words again in silence.
Rita watched her son.
"Never forget that, Alejandro. The De La Vegas' gold vanished before you were even born. But their honor remains here."
She touched the young man's chest.
"And now it falls to you to carry it."