On the roof I had a good view of the city. Daylight was spreading, and I could see Veracruz was under attack by as many as two or three hundred men. Men-whose only uniforms were pirate motley-invaded homes in small units, while a larger force attacked the alcalde's palace. His guards offered only token resistance, firing their muskets perhaps once or twice before running.

The fort was barely a musket shot from sh.o.r.e. I could see men lined up on the walls, but no boats filled with soldados disembarked. The corsairs had confiscated their longboats with their own dinghies.

Shouting, screams, musket fire, and explosions rang in the early dawn. As I hid on the roof, people ran into the presumed safe haven of the church without realizing that blackguards respected no sanctuary. Others tried to flee in carriages and on horseback. Most were stopped by the freebooters, shot from their mounts or dragged screaming from their coaches.

I saw a carriage rushing from one of the wealthier districts into the plaza in a mad dash for the alcalde's palace. Careening around the corner, it nearly overturned. The indio handling the reins was thrown from the driver's seat. Panicking from the gunfire, the horses galloped into the middle of the square, the carriage wheels rumbling across the cobblestones.

A pale, frightened face appeared in the carriage window.

"Elena!" The name tore from my lungs in a hoa.r.s.e scream.

A pirate stood in the path of the oncoming horses and fired a shot. The startled horses reared, then bolted as other buccaneers grabbed their harnesses.

I was already leaping from the roof to the top of the arcade overhanging the sidewalk and from there to the ground.

Four freebooters dragged Elena from the coach and were ripping off her clothes. She was screaming, clawing, biting, swinging furiously at them.

At a dead run I hurled my dagger into the back of one of the buccaneers, and as the man next to him turned, drove my sword into his throat I jerked it out and parried the sword of the third man. Stepping out of the circle of death, I switched hands, taking my sword into my left hand and dagger in the right, leaped at the man. Feinting toward his face, I hamstrung him.

A blade slashed my left arm. I cried out in pain and dropped my blade. The last man standing had sliced my upper arm to the bone. As I swung around, off balance and open to the next blow, Elena pulled something from the folds of her dress.

His sword came up to whack off my head when Elena struck him in the back with something. He gaped at me in wide-eyed surprise. When he turned to face her, he had a jeweled dagger protruding from his back. I relieved him of his sword as he fell to his knees. Other blackguards were now running toward us.

"Into the carriage!" I yelled to her.

Climbing aboard, I grabbed the reins with my good hand, throwing my sword on the boards at my feet. Holding the reins with my knees, I jerked the driver's whip from its holder and lashed out at the horses. A pirate cannon had been rolled into the plaza, and now it boomed, smashing the main gate of the government palace. More from the cannon than my whip, the horses bolted. I hung onto the reins with my one good hand as the terrified horses thundered across the plaza, scattering privateers in their path.

A marauder leaped aboard by grabbing onto the carriage door. Elena screamed, and I leaned down with the sword and swung at him. I missed but he released his hold and fell.

"Elena! Are you all right?"

"Yes!" she shouted up.

We raced out of the plaza and down a residential street. After a few blocks we hit the road to Jalapa. My pain was intense, and I was dizzy from loss of blood, but knowledge of who my pa.s.senger was redoubled my strength.

When we were safely down the road, I brought the horses under control and slowed them to a walk. They were soaked from sweat and ready to fall. I was soaked in blood and sweat, weak from the loss of blood, and I was slowly fading as the horses came to a stop.

"Are you injured?" a voice called up.

This voice of an angel was the last thing I heard when a black cloud swept over me, and I was tumbling, tumbling, tumbling into a bottomless pit.

ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN.

"Senor, senor, can you hear me?"

Was it the voice of an angel-or a siren? One of those half-woman creatures who seduced sailors to their doom with the sweetness of their song. The question ran through my mind as I hovered between light and dark. As light returned to my mind, I realized I was still silting on the driver's bench. Elena had climbed up beside me.

"I'm trying to stop the bleeding," she said. A piece of white linen, blood-soaked, was tied around my arm, and she was tearing another piece off of her petticoat.

My mind was still foggy, but my medical training came to play. "Put it above the wound," I instructed her. "Take something... the handle to one of your combs. Twist the cloth with it so it tightens against my arm."

As she tightened the cloth, her eyes came up and met mine, the eyes of my personal angel. Darkness was falling again for me. In a daze I was sure I heard the clop of horse's hooves and the swaying of the carriage.

As light came to my eyes and things took shape, I found Elena still at my side. She was holding the reins, and the horses slowly led the carriage. Funny, I thought, I'd never seen a woman handle reins, and for a moment I wondered if I was dreaming again. But, of course! This was a woman who could not just read and write, but who wrote poetry and plays! "And who stabbed a pirate with a dagger?"

"What did you say?" she asked.

I did not realize I had spoken aloud. "I said-I wondered where you got the dagger that saved my life."

"A friend told me that prost.i.tutes carry a dagger to defend themselves. I don't see why a prost.i.tute should be more effectively protected than a lady."

She pulled back on the reins and spoke gently to the horses, telling them to stop.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"A league, perhaps two, from the city. You have been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past hour. There is a sugarcane hacienda owned by an acquaintance perhaps another hour ahead. The road is firm enough for carriage wheels. We will go there for shelter and the treatment of your wound."

I was still weak, and my arm was in agony. I loosened the linen tourniquet she had twisted above the wound and tightened the one that pressed on it.

"The wound needs to be cauterized with hot oil," she said.

"No, oil harms the flesh even more. The French doctor, Pare, proved that. If it does not stop bleeding, the veins that leak will need to be st.i.tched."

"You're a doctor?"

"No, although I have some medical knowledge. My fa-uncle, was a doctor and on occasion I a.s.sisted him."

She gave me a long look, a searching stare that took me in my entirety. "Have we met? Perhaps in Mexico City? A reception?"

"No, I just arrived in New Spain for the first time on the dispatch boat. But I thank G.o.d that he permitted me to meet you now."

"Strange..."

"You think you know me? Perhaps someone who looks like me?"

"You seem a little familiar, in a way I feel but cannot express. Also you called me by my name earlier."

Fortunately she had turned to pull back on the reins as she spoke, or she would have seen the shock on my face. I pulled my features back into control and smiled at her when she turned back to me.

"Your name was shouted by someone near the inn when you were being pulled out of the coach."

"Someone must have recognized me."

"Do you live in Veracruz?"

"No, in Mexico. I've been visiting friends."