The rogue nodded toward a raised, covered pavilion. Under its canopy the alcalde of Veracruz and the city gentry gathered to greet the archbishop. Tables of food and drink had been set out for their pleasure.

Staring down at us from the top row was the alcalde's new young wife. His previous wife had recently died of fever. The woman saw us looking up at her, and she smiled coquettishly at my newfound employer, her eyes softly seductive. She was half-sitting, half-standing, in one of those great globelike dresses that puff out majestically and are not meant for walking, lying, or sitting but solely for gachupin admiration.

I thought the dress looked stupid but not the woman. I'd seen her once before in a pa.s.sing carriage. She reeked of sensuality and looked to me as if she could snare the soul of a sinless saint. I said as much to the fray, who was with me at the time. He recognized her and described her as "the serpent who tempted Lucifer," which in this case, I suppose, was fitting. My newfound master needed no introduction to Satan.

The rogue handed me a small piece of folded paper. "Take this to the senora. Climb the shoring timbers under the grandstand to get to her. Do not be seen giving it to her. If you get caught, swallow it."

I hesitated.

"Yes?" he asked, smiling pleasantly.

"Your name if she asks?"

"Mateo."

"Mateo," I said softly.

He handed me the coins, then leaned down so that his garlic-and-wine breath reeked in my face. Smiling the entire time, he said, "If you tell anyone about this, I will cut off your cojones. Comprende?"

I had no doubt he had a whole collection of cojones.

"Comprende."

The pavilion I was to enter featured three levels of wood tables and benches, each row higher than the previous one. The last row was ten feet off of the ground.

The alcalde table was in the middle of the top row. Each row had a wooden bench thirty or forty feet long and a table the same length. Atop the cloth-covered tables were a selection of food, fruits, and wine. Beneath the rows of benches and tables was a maze of boards and timbers shoring it up.

Two reales for storming this citadel? Dios mio! I could lose my head and my cojones. I deserved an entire treasure fleet. I looked back, and Mateo drew his dagger and pointed it menacingly toward his crotch.

I felt my own cojones tighten and looked back to the structure I had to scale. I realized why he had chosen me-only a contortionist would be able to twist and crawl and scurry through the maze of supporting timbers.

When I was out of his sight I eagerly read the note I was to deliver.

Your face is written in my soul

No rose is redder than your lips

Your eyes are burned into my heart

No goose is softer than your cheeks

Tonight, my love,

At the hour when your body is the warmest

"No goose is softer than your cheeks?" Que va! Couldn't he have stolen better poetry than this?

I went beneath the pavilion and began twisting my way up through the boards, contorting my body every which way. Some of the boards weren't firmly fixed, and I had to continually test their stability, keeping my weight on the stout vertical bracing-timbers. Once a cross board came loose in my hand, and I had to meticulously work it back into place.

Any second I expected to be spotted by the gentry above or to have the entire jungle of shoring timbers come crashing down on top of me, killing everyone on the grandstand-myself in the process.

Finally, however, I reached the top level. I came up under the table so I wouldn't be seen. I was at one end, about fifteen feet from where the alcalde's senora sat, and I slowly crawled in her direction, avoiding the shoes of men and petticoats of women as I crawled.

I crawled until I recognized her dress. Puffing out like a big round ball an arm's length in each direction, this rose-colored raiment was supported underneath by cane spokes and wire loops. I have heard the dresses called both by their French name, farthingales, and their Spanish one, guardinfantes. Some of those I've seen flared out several feet on each side. The woman was not sitting naturally nor was she expected to, because the frame of the dress would not permit her. A wooden device had been constructed for her to lean back against in a half-sitting position.

I pulled on the hem of her dress to let her know I was there. I was reaching up to hand her the note, when her husband shouted, "Amigos! Don't doubt me when I tell you I am the greatest bullfighter in all New Spain. You've seen men fighting bulls with lances from the saddle of their horse. I stand with my feet on the ground and fight the bull with nothing but a cape."

I heard him stomping around to demonstrate his technique. "I need a cape. Clear this table," he told servants. "I will use the cover."

I needed the table cover! If I lost the cover, I lost my head!

Desperate and panicking, I hid in the only place available-even as the table cover was being pulled off by servants-under the woman's dress. I buried myself under her wire-framed tent and petticoats.

Ayyo, what saint did I fail to honor on their festival day to deserve this punishment? Dios mio, Holy Mother, Jesu Cristo! I am an innocent boy. A thief, yes. A conniver, true. A liar, often. But why must I have my head removed and impaled upon the city gates because of an affair of love that I was not involved in?

Furthermore, bullfights were done from horseback. Everyone knows that. Why must this fool of an alcalde have to pretend to fight bulls on foot? This was an offense not only to the bulls but to me, whom he had put in harm's way. Why couldn't he leave the pavilion and demonstrate his skill on a horse?

While he entertained the audience with his childish antics, I found myself under the tent of his wife's dress, squeezed in the warm, mysterious place between his wife's legs. Afraid that any part of my body might show, I squeezed in tighter against that sanctum sanctorum, and she spread her legs wide apart to allow entry. I quickly discovered that the woman wore nothing beneath the voluminous petticoats, and that I was flush against her most intimate of intimates.

I had seen naked little lepero girls urinating on the street, and I been told that women too had an opening between their legs. Yes, I knew now that was true. I could confirm that it was warm and moist, a wet lushness that was more tender and inviting than I would ever have imagined. I began to understand why men would want to place their garranchas in there.

Her hand grabbed my hair and pushed me deeper into the split between her legs.

Soon my nose was pushing up against the warm wetness, and she was pulling me harder and harder against her and wiggling more and more as she did. Something was between her legs that I did not know a woman had, a little b.u.t.ton, a mushroom-sized pene of her own. From the woman's frantic movements I could tell that touching this was of great interest to her. This secret treasure seemed to have a hidden nerve. When I fondled it, her gyrations increased in proportion to the force of that touch. When I accidentally b.u.mped my nose against it, her whole body trembled and shook. She squirmed, pushed it toward me, and the opening between her legs began to spread.

The alcalde's voice carried down to me as he stomped up and down the pavilion, fighting off a bull-played by a servant.

It was awkward, but somehow she managed to brace her backside against that board and hook a leg around the back of my head. The next thing I knew her treasure trove was in my mouth and between my lips. I fought to disengage, but her leg tightened its grip. My mouth and nose were now buried in that secret valley, and I couldn't get my breath. I opened my mouth wider, my tongue came out in a silent gasp, and-and-

That was what she wanted.

My tongue.

I was trapped. Her leg locked around the back of my neck. A mob of gachupins on all sides who would draw and quarter and castrate me if I was caught. I had Mateo below, who would likewise geld me if I failed to give her the note. My only recourse was to mollify her.

I began nervously, hesitantly, circling her nub with my tongue, almost afraid to touch it. But the more I circled and avoided it, the more her own hips began to tremble. Whenever I touched it, her body shook so hard I feared we'd be discovered.

Not that she seemed to care. She squirmed and gyrated, and her private parts became even hotter and wetter until my own garrancha grew, became muy excitado, throbbing uncontrollably.

Now the terrible fear was being replaced by something else: unbearable pressure. I had experienced these feelings before, and once a friendly puta, whom I'd slept beside one night at the house of the poor, had showed me how to touch it to relieve the pressure.

"Magnifico!" The crowd proclaimed as the alcalde "killed" the bull with his sword.

The more they screamed, the harder the senora locked onto the back of my head, the more my mouth and tongue worked at her source of joy.

"You have seen, amigos, the technique of fighting a bull with one's feet on the ground. I tell you that someday bullfights will no longer be from horseback. Our Portuguese friends say that will never happen, but mark my words-it will be hombre against el toro, facing the charging animal with nothing but his courage and cape to protect him."

He threw the cape-table cover back on the table, and servants rushed to put it back in place. As the audience applauded, the woman's thighs and private parts were vibrating voraciously against my face.