The Old Order
- When Book 5 (Padre Martinze) begins, Bishop Latour rides with Jacinto to the town of Taos, the second largest in New Mexico next to Albuquerque. He knows that both the priest and the people there have a big hate-on for Americans and anyone trying to meddle in their business. It's even rumored that the head priest, Padre Martinez, was the man who organized the massacre of an American governor and a dozen other white men.
- As they come close to Taos, Latour and Jacinto are approached by a bunch of Native Americans and Mexicans with guns. Padre Martinez is among them. They ride into Taos together, where people flood into the streets and try to kiss Latour's ring as he rides by.
- Apparently, these people are used to treating their religious leaders like gods.
- When they get back to Martinez's place, Martinez wakes up a large young man by kicking him in the ribs. The young man, whose name is Trinidad, gets up and runs off. When they sit down to dinner in Martinez's house later on, Latour is formally introduced to Trinidad.
- Martinez immediately asks Latour whether he truly believes that a Catholic priest should give up sex for his entire life. Latour says that the church is very clear on this and that priests should never have sex. Martinez fiercely disagrees though. We could have assumed as much, considering that he has already introduced Latour to one of his sons.
- Bishop Latour says that before long, he'll eradicate all traces of this kind of thinking in his diocese. Or in other words, he's telling Martinez that his days of power are numbered.
- Martinez laughs him off and says he'll never be able to change people's minds in this part of the world. He claims that the religion of New Mexico is connected directly to the land and that its roots go very deep.
- He also dares Latour to try and take his parish from him. Tired of Martinez's back talk, Latour gets up and heads to bed.
- The next day, Martinez shows Latour around the village and tells him a little bit about his life. Martinez got married at twenty, but lost his wife and child to illness when he was twenty-three.
- It was after this that he decided to go into the priesthood. He even taught himself to read in order to become a priest. Naturally, the guy hates Americans because their conquering of New Mexico will spell an end to his power as a Mexican priest.
- When he leaves Taos, Latour stops in at Kit Carson's house. Kit isn't there, but his wife thanks Latour for the visit and tells him of the rumor that Trinidad Lucero is actually another one of Padre Martinez's sons.
- As Latour leaves, Carson's wife gives him a nice piece of lace-work to give to Sister Magdalena as a present when he returns to Santa Fe.
- Back in Santa Fe, Latour sits down with Father Vaillant to chat about what they're going to do with Padre Martinez. Vaillant says that they need to remove and punish the guy immediately for his sins, but Latour insists that this will only make things worse in Taos. He decides to turn a blind eye for the time being, figuring that sooner or later, Martinez will become too old to have sex with young women.
- They conclude by talking about how Latour has been summoned to attend a religious conference in Rome. In a year's time, he'll be back in Europe giving his bosses a rundown of what's happening in New Mexico.