Chapter Three - Counter-Punch
Part One
Hearing the scream, Diego sprinted out the door and into the courtyard. Others there were stirring too, on hearing the commotion from upstairs. On the long balcony on the second floor, Sergeant Garcia was emerging from a door, his boots in his hands, his uniform rather undone, and with a look of pure alarm on his face.
"But, I...But I...." he was saying, looking back into the room.
"Get out!" came the voice again, and then the door slammed shut. It was, of course, the voice of Senorita -- or perhaps it was Senora -- Consuelo.
"But I..." the Sergeant said again. Then he turned about to see the many pairs of eyes upon him, gazing up from the courtyard.
Diego bounded up the stairs to join his friend on the balcony. "Sergeant, are you all right?" he asked.
"Si, Don Diego...at least I think I am...." he looked at the door again, and then down at the group below. "But I feel I have found myself in a confounding situation," he confessed. He looked down at his boots in his hand and then back at Diego, and shrugged helplessly.
Diego put his hand on the Sergeant’s shoulder and began to steer him towards the stairs. "Come," he said. "Let’s go downstairs and get some breakfast, and see if we can sort all this out."
"I think that would be a very good idea," said Garcia. "Although I am not sure if I am equal to any sorting at the moment. Since I am not sure exactly what has happened."
"We’ll help you, Sergeant," Diego assured him.
Elizabeth, still in her robe, was at the bottom of the stairs awaiting them.
"Senora," Garcia said, seeing her. He gulped.
"Good morning, Sergeant," Elizabeth said. "Our servants are preparing food for everyone, you must come in and join my father and Don Alejandro, and Diego and me..."
"Si, Senora," he said, as Diego steered him to the sala door. He spied Reyes standing near the gate. "Corporal," he said, trying to gather himself in spite of his disheveled state, "return to the cuartel and make sure everything is...as it should be."
"Si, Sergeant," Reyes said, trying to keep a straight face.
Diego waved at the Corporal to go on, and then led Garcia into the sala.
"I’ll go...see how Consuelo is," Elizabeth volunteered to her husband.
"Please...tell her I said...hello," Garcia said as he disappeared into the sala with Diego.
Elizabeth climbed the stairs, and summoning Maria she hurriedly stopped in her room to put on a dress. After Maria had tied the last ribbon and hooked the last loop, Elizabeth returned to the balcony and knocked on Consuelo’s door.
"Go away!" came a shout from inside.
"No, no, it’s Elizabeth...and I think Clementia is coming, too," Elizabeth said to the door.
There was a silence.
"Consuelo, please let me in and let’s get this straightened out," Elizabeth said to the door.
Clementia arrived, just behind Elizabeth, looking quite wilted but also wide-eyed. She had remained in the sala long enough to hear from Alejandro and Carlos a confirmation of her "dream."
"She won’t let me in," Elizabeth said.
Clementia knocked on the door. "Cons! Open up, it’s me!"
Silence greeted them again. After a moment, the door opened a crack. "He’s not out there, is he?" came a voice from around the corner of the door.
"There is no ‘he’ out here at all, just the two of us," Elizabeth said, bypassing the fact that a number of people in the courtyard were still observing the drama.
The door opened slowly, letting light seep into the darkened room. Elizabeth and Clementia stepped in. Their eyes moved about, taking in the chaos before them. Parts of clothes were strewn about, Sergeant Garcia’s belt was on the back of a chair, Consuelo’s dress was in the middle of the floor, the bedclothes were tossed wildly about. Elizabeth and Clementia exchanged glances.
"What happened?" Clementia asked.
From the side of the room behind the door, Consuelo emerged into the light. She was in her slip, a robe she had found in the wardrobe wrapped around her. "I’m not sure..." she said weakly.
Elizabeth went to her and, taking her arm, helped her to the chair to sit down. She recoiled at seeing Sergeant Garcia’s belt, which Elizabeth quickly grabbed and handed to Clementia. Clementia looked at it dumbly, realized what it was, and then put it behind her back and then dropped it.
"Do you want some water, or coffee?" Elizabeth asked. "I can have some brought up."
Consuelo nodded. Her hair was in her eyes. She looked humiliated.
Elizabeth called out from the doorway to Maria, to bring up water and coffee. Then she shut the door and sat down across from Consuelo.
"I don’t know exactly what happened," Consuelo began, looking from her cousin to Elizabeth and back again.
"What is the last thing you remember, if I may ask?" Elizabeth said.
"Well I remember the fig picking contest, and I remember you and Diego leaving..." she said, looking at Elizabeth enviously. "And then there was some more dancing, and I think that was when my uncle started making lottery tickets."
"Your uncle?" Elizabeth said.
"He’s always joking about marrying Consuelo off," Clementia offered. This resulted in a foul glance from her cousin.
"That punch!" Consuelo cried at Elizabeth. "It was that punch that made everyone so crazy! Now I’m...I may be married to that...that fat man!" She looked down again, crushed by her humiliation.
"We can get it all straightened out," Elizabeth said. "We need to find Capitan Solano and see if what he did has any legal meaning. I don’t think it does. But Diego can find that."
"You should have been there to put a stop to it! Instead you were....well, we know where you were! AND what you were doing!"
Elizabeth sighed. It was one thing to be accused of being El Zorro’s consort. It was quite another to be attacked for retiring early with her husband.
"Now, Consuelo..." Clementia started, trying to be helpful.
"Don’t you ‘now Consuelo’ me! They should have been here! They were the only people in the entire situation who weren’t out of their minds with that punch!" She turned on Elizabeth. "Diego wasn’t drinking it and neither were you! You could have put a stop to the whole thing!"
"Well, obviously we didn’t," Elizabeth stated, refusing to be apologetic. "But really, Consuelo, why are you so upset? Nothing happened, did it? I mean, didn’t the Sergeant sleep on the floor or something?"
"When I woke up, he was on the bed next to me!" she cried. "He took up nearly the whole bed!"
"But come now, he was fully clothed when he came out of this room," Elizabeth pointed out.
"That isn’t the point!" Consuelo nearly screamed.
Clementia commenced to hushing her cousin, as Maria arrived to deliver the coffee. She came in silently, set everything out, and nodded slightly to Elizabeth. Elizabeth went to her and Maria quietly said, "Don Diego would like to see you downstairs."
"All right," Elizabeth said, dismissing her servant. "Consuelo, Clementia, let me go see what Diego is learning. I’ll be back."
With that she made her way downstairs to the sala. People were pulling themselves together and leaving the courtyard, seen off by Alejandro and Carlos. For the most part, everyone’s spirits were still high. Several were joking rather mercilessly about Sergeant Garcia’s Miracle.
Entering the sala, Elizabeth found Diego sitting at the table with Sergeant Garcia. The Sergeant was helping himself to some breakfast. When Diego saw her enter, he came over to her.
"Come with me into the library," Diego said, taking her arm.
"What?" Elizabeth asked, once they were in private.
"What has Consuelo told you?" he asked.
Elizabeth shrugged. "She doesn’t seem to remember much. She says she woke up in the bed with him, but I think he was fully clothed. I don’t think..." she paused and looked up at him slyly. "I don’t think they had the kind of night we had."
"I certainly hope not!" he said. "The Sergeant claims not to remember much, either, after the, uh, wedding ceremony. But he is quite smitten with her. He says he ‘wants to work things out.’"
"What does that mean?"
Diego shrugged. "If the marriage really took place and if it is legal, he can claim his conjugal rights."
Elizabeth looked at him wide-eyed. "You have got to be kidding," she said.
He shook his head.
"Oh, my," she said. "Does he know that?"
Diego nodded.
"Oh, my," she repeated.
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