el once de octubre -- as Jacinto Ortiz, private journal, en español
I wanted nothing more than to be home today, not in this home in Lisbon, in Lisbon, among the Portuguese. They will never say it openly but they believe that Amado is lost, that he is already dead by the hands of that filth, but I know in my heart that isn't true. We continue to fight, but they say that my brother is a brave Spaniard, that he will survive and make us proud -- I know what that means. I've used those words myself.
I'm not to be seen in Spain, not to be absent from the usual proceedings, but Soto has written his declaration of intentions (I, of course, scanned the language before I sent it on to the Ambassador) and so things will be somewhat freer than they were yesterday, when I couldn't see my mother but for all the business I had to accomplish.
At the very least Prod is dead.
For someone who claimed to have a love of family, he befriended the Spanish office only to hand one of our own over to none less than Vidal Mendes -- to aid Vidal Mendes, the lying scum -- and so he deserves the same death as any other filth we've disposed of in the past weeks. I cut his traitor's throat myself.
His family may never know what he was. I only hope they did not. In any case, he will rot with the rest.
In this I mourn a man who never lived, a man who was a mask for a man who worked against Spain.
I must stay aware and watch for those who mourn; he may have turned others against us. Our mission is far too important, and we can't be stopped by a senseless rebellion of treasonous bastards.
I accepted my first brother's death many years ago. I accepted the promise of a Council seat, I rose to the occasion, when I knew all along that it was not my role to have. I am not meant to be the Ortiz heir, and I am not meant to be the sole heir. I refuse to be the end of a line. I refuse to be a man without brothers, when my brothers are everything to me, when I have already lost part of myself to disease and I will lose yet more to the senseless violence of radicals.
I could kill a hundred men tonight, my hand is steady and my heart is firm, because I feel nothing. Amado may be lost, and if that is the case, I will kill a hundred men and then a hundred more for Spain, because there is nothing left for me.
My wife is asleep. I can't trust even her. This is no sort of family. This is not how things are supposed to be.
I am the Spanish Ambassador to Portugal, the son-in-law to the most powerful man in Spain, the heir to a line eleven generations pure, and yet I find myself helpless and alone with my wife at my side and at the hands of a Mudblood.
The Ambassador will have news soon. Until then, I will do my best to sleep.