At last, after contending with raging streams, mudslides, fallen trees, and their own fatigue, the two men reached the city. The hour was late, the night dark. Estimo Sanchez, Don Raphael’s brother, was not in when their carriage discharged them in front of a great white house that lay like a jewel at the edge of a park. Neither True nor Don Raphael complained; they left word with the staff and tumbled into the first real beds they had slept in for over three weeks. True woke early and with little sense of where he was. Sleepily, he pulled back the curtains and saw that his room looked onto a balcony that ran the length of the house. Beyond the wrought-iron railing, a high carpet of trees obscured the city, beyond which, outlined against the predawn light, rose the majestic mountains that had, in ancient times, protected the abode of the gods. It was too damn early to be overwhelmed. Still blurry-eyed, he stumbled back to his bed and, luxury of luxuries, fell immediately to sleep again.
