The Crown of Valencia

by Catherine Friend

  Once again we were lined up facing the crowd, the guards behind us, with Nuño kneeling before the stone. I choked on my own breath as the guards forced Nuño’s head down onto the block. The new executioner licked his lips, wiped sweaty palms on his robe, then took a few practice swings with the axe, giggling when the heavy blade swung him around. God damn it, this would not be good. Nuño turned his head and looked straight at me.

  Finally the man raised the trembling axe over his head. Blinking furiously, I refused to look away from Nuño’s pained brown eyes, sending all the love and courage I could through my own.

  Thwap! Instead of lowering the axe, the executioner gave a surprised “Ho!” When an arrow pierced his chest, the man fell over backward and I whirled to face the crowd. Fifteen red-capped al-Saffah archers knelt on the roof directly across from us. “Drop!” I shouted, and Grimaldi and I joined Nuño on the planks. Arrows whizzed over our heads and into the guards behind us. Hope surged through me. “Untie me!” I yelled over the screams and the shouted orders erupting around us. Back to back, we fumbled with each other’s ropes, and the three of us were soon free.

  Nuño leapt to his feet, knocking over the two guards nearest us. “This may turn out to be a good day after all!”

  Female war cries sent my pulse racing even faster as mounted al-Saffah warriors poured into the square from every side street. Swords began to sing their shrill song. “Run,” Nuño shouted, grabbing my hand. We jumped off the platform into chaos, townspeople swirling like a cyclone as they ran from swords, flying horse hooves, and al-Saffah arrows. A wave of terrified people swept us apart.

  “Nuño! Nuño!” I called. He’d yanked away someone’s sword and was slashing his way through a phalanx of soldiers, roaring with triumph. “Nuño!” Finally I gave up and turned to run with the crowd to avoid death by trampling. The crowd surged around acacia trees, over bodies, past al-Saffah women and Moors locked in hand-to-hand combat. I stumbled but recovered as I turned down a side street with the others, seeing out of the corner of my eye that a mounted al-Saffah barreled toward us on a snorting black stallion. Screaming, those nearest clawed their way past me, but still I ran. I would not go from Moor prisoner to al-Saffah prisoner, no matter how grateful I was.

  The hooves thundered closer but I ignored the stitch in my side and almost reached the corner. “Stop!” rang out a familiar voice. “I cannot rescue you if you flee.”

  I whirled around, hand to my throat. The woman pulled her horse up just short of me, flinging back her red hood as she did. Elena, lips tight with aggravation, her eyes ice blue even in the heat of this battle. She reached down, I raised my good arm, then with a hefty grunt she pulled me onto the saddle behind her.

  An al-Saffah yell sent the red capes for their horses, and the ones bringing up the rear fought off the Moors as they retreated. While I clung to Elena, Nuño and Grimaldi rode double with al-Saffah women. We raced through the narrow streets, ducking under the lower balconies, then approached a narrow gate in the wall, open, guarded by al-Saffah guards and a pile of dead Valencian guards. We thundered through the gate, then flew north toward the “suburbs,” the sea glistening to our right. As we passed Villanueva, the twenty horses slowed.

  “Stick with the plan,” Elena shouted to Nuño and Grimaldi as they slid off their rescuers’ horses near Rodrigo’s camp.

  “What about me?” I shouted into the wind as we picked up speed, the horse’s gait rattling my bones.

  “You come with us,” she said as her cape whipped my face and stung my cheeks. Her words didn’t cheer me since her voice was as steel-edged as her sword.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I held myself stiffly in the saddle for two hours, not wanting to touch Elena any more than she wanted to touch me. We climbed up the sides of blue-green mountains reaching toward clouds so white they looked painted onto a false sky. While the horses wove their way through scattered basalt boulders and snags of gooseberry bushes, I left mental bread crumbs along the way. We turned left at a rock shaped like a howling wolf. We turned right by the three live oaks alone in a meadow.

  Somehow, in the week I’d been recuperating, summer had blown in and the air was fifteen degrees warmer. Fields of orange poppies stretched between rocky outcroppings, turning the mountainsides sweet and pungent. As we climbed, yellow sedum crept over the rocky ground on either side of the trail. The sun was so warm that at one point I closed my eyes and nearly let my head fall forward to rest on Elena, but I snapped up just in time.

  Often I found my hand at my neck, searching for a pearl that wasn’t there, which was just as well, since it was an outdated symbol of an outdated love. Old news. The woman sharing her saddle with me had changed too much. Besides, there was absolutely no point in rekindling the romance, even had Elena been interested. When I accomplished what I’d set out to do in this accursed century, I’d drag Arturo kicking and screaming from his precious jewels and sex-on-demand harem, remind him of all he’d left behind, and then we’d return to our own time through the cave at Santillana del Mar. Back in Chicago, Arturo would be grounded for ten years, and I would serve him nothing but vegetables. Canned vegetables. And maybe week-old bread without any butter or jam. The only computer games he’d be allowed to play would be Pong, the antique from the 1970s. The only DVDs he could rent would be Disney movies. I was feeling better already.

  Nugaymath stopped us to water the horses in a wide mountain stream where fish flashed in the shadows of overhanging elms, then we began climbing a narrow rocky path single file. Elena and I rode last.

  I cleared my throat. The worst she could do would be throw me off the horse. “I need your help, Luis. I know you hate Rodrigo even more now, but he must take Valencia.”

  “No.”

  “Over time, Rodrigo has been given a substance in his ale. It’s affected his thoughts and his actions. That’s why he has changed.”

  “I am not interested.”

  “One of Paloma de Palma’s spies, an older Jewish man, brought Rodrigo ale spiked with this substance. His body has grown to need it, so the changes you see in him aren’t his fault.”

  “I do not believe any substance has that strength.”

  “What happens to Fadri when he drinks too much wine or ale?”

  “Too much wine makes him morose and too much ale makes him obnoxious, but nothing could so drastically alter Rodrigo. Now stop talking.”

  “Remember how violence ripped open the fabric of your family?” Man, could I stoop much lower? “If Rodrigo does not take Valencia, the fabric of history will rip. Thousands, no, millions of people will cease to exist.”

  “No.”

  I clenched my teeth. The timeline mess was too distant, too esoteric, since of course Elena didn’t care about faceless millions. But the only faces I could put on the impending disaster were mine and Arturo’s, and she didn’t care about either of us.

  “I will pay you. I buried thousands of gold pieces near Mirabueno. Marta and the others need some, but you can have the rest if you and your men—”

  “They are no longer my men, thanks to you.” She twisted in her saddle until our eyes met. I shivered. “No is the same in your native language as it is in mine. Have you gone light in the head these last eight years?”

  My glare sent her facing forward again, and I said nothing more. I was relieved and grateful, of course, that she had rescued me, but I was no freer than if I’d still been trapped in Anna’s palace, since every step this damn horse took was a step in the wrong direction—away from Arturo, away from El Cid, away from Valencia.

  The path narrowed ridiculously. When the horses lunged up between more boulders, I leaned forward to stay in the saddle, then when the path took a nose dive, Elena’s hips slammed back against mine. As the riders ahead splashed across a slender stream, my anxiety increased, knowing I would be a prisoner again. Elena would not let me go until she’d destroyed Rodrigo. Damn it. I was tired of her distance, tired of her anger, and tired of my own fa
ilures.

  “You’ve changed,” I suddenly snapped. She said nothing as we waited in line to cross the stream. “You stink.”

  “I what?”

  “You stink. You smell. You used to care about being clean, but no more. You’ve lived too long as a Christian.” I could feel her anger stir. She gripped the reins and moved us into the stream. “I stink too. I haven’t had a bath in days. This century is cruel, it’s ugly, and it stinks.” My fresh fury flamed the fire.

  “You want a bath? Fine, take one,” Elena muttered, and with a sudden yank on my bad arm, she dumped me off the horse and into the stream.

  Ice cold water and sharp needles of pain shooting through my left arm stole my breath. I sputtered, spitting out water as I struggled to sit up, water running into my eyes and ears. “God damn you,” I finally managed to spit out.

  She finished crossing the stream and waited while some of the al-Saffah women laughed. I stood, my legs already numb from the cold. I sloshed up onto the bank we’d just left, then scrambled up the trail.

  “Hey,” Elena shouted. “Come back. Do not be ridiculous. You cannot get away from me.”

  I knew she was right, but I’d be damned if I’d make it easy for her. Inhaling sharply at the pain in my shoulder, I crashed into the brush and climbed, noting fresh blood on my sleeve. The wound had re-opened.

  Vivid cursing followed me, as did snapping branches and more cursing. My flight was futile, but it felt good to be doing something, and as I crested a hill, hope surged through me. Another hundred feet and I could get lost in the rocks ahead, so I winced at my shoulder pain and the brambles cutting my palms, but pushed on.

  “Oof!” Elena tackled me around the waist. We both went down and I cried out as I landed on my injured shoulder. With my good hand, I reached for a stick, a rock, anything, but she pinned me to the ground. I squirmed in fury, but soon her weight and my shoulder made movement impossible. Besides, with her entire body pressed against mine, those parts of my body that could throb insistently began to do so.

  “Get off me.”

  “Why must you be so damned difficult?”

  I couldn’t move my legs. “Rape may be your fantasy, but it’s not mine. Get off me.”

  “I do not want to rape you,” Elena growled, voice heavy with disgust. Her face hovered inches above mine, a tanned face I used to stroke and kiss and gaze upon with such love she’d blush.

  “Then get the hell off me.” My defiance had begun to drain as the pain grew, and much of my sleeve was now sticky with blood. A thousand daggers stabbed my arm, my shoulder, my chest as the pain spread.

  Elena rolled off me with a snort and yanked me to my feet. “Why are you bleeding?”

  My head spun to be standing so suddenly. “What do you care? If you must know, Rafael Mahfouz wounded me.” Whoa. White dots flickered across the trees, across Elena, across the ground. Whoa.

  She grabbed my belt and my right arm, and half-dragged, half-carried me back down the hill. Why did everything sound so far away? I stumbled crossing the stream but Elena jerked me up by my belt. Nugaymath waited for us.

  “Navarro, I understand lying with a woman now and then. Many of us do. But could you not choose a more cooperative one?”

  My feet and calves turned to ice. My shoulder burned to ashes, and the world broke up into white dots. Damn it. Passing out yet again. The world twisted faster and faster into more white dots, then disappeared altogether.

  *

  She stroked my face, nuzzling me gently with her warm lips. Her hands roamed my neck, loosening my tunic, my shirt. She sucked on my throat, hungry now, needing more, lowering her head to take into her mouth what her insistent fingers had already hardened. I rose to meet her, but when I shifted my shoulder, a flash of pain cut through me, and I moaned. “Saints’ blood, I am sorry,” she whispered.

  I opened my eyes and looked around. A twig snapped nearby. “Luis?” Moonlight filtered through thin canvas onto the ground next to me. A tent. A dream. I was alone. The pain had not been imagined, however. Wincing as I shifted onto my back, I sighed at my ridiculous fantasy but then cursed and sat up. A heavy iron shackle was locked around my right wrist. A chain dragged across my waist. Grimacing in pain, I felt along the thick links and found a stake buried deep in the rock hard soil. Confusion pushed through the pain. I was chained to the ground? Like an animal?

  Moving slowly to save my shoulder, I touched my clothes, finding my shirt stiff with dried blood and the leather tunic shrunk tight against my ribs from my tumble in the stream. I looked down. Even in this weak light I saw the leather no longer hid my breasts, but defined them. Great, just great.

  I touched my tender shoulder. Someone had wrapped a bandage around it, probably miles away from being sterile, but at least the bleeding had stopped. My joints had begun to ache, and not just my shoulder. I flexed my fingers and gasped. I was too young for arthritis, but now that I thought about it, my aches had begun even before I’d been shot.

  Refusing to think more about this, I stood up, relieved my head seemed to have returned from la-la land. Dragging the chain behind me, I stepped outside into the moonlight, where dozens of tents filled a flat meadow surrounded by pines. Al-Saffah camp. I could see sentries, their red cloaks nearly black in this light, as they moved around the edges of camp. Still-smoldering campfires reminded me of camping with Arturo, Laura, and Deb. Snoring came from many tents, the sounds of love from one nearby. I flushed in the dark, remembering my dream.

  My chain allowed me to move about eight feet from the tent opening. Beside the tent, someone had hacked a crude hole in the ground and piled up leaves beside it. How thoughtful. My own toilet. I used it, awkwardly pulling up my pants with a sore left arm and a right one dragging about twenty pounds of iron.

  I moved to the end of my chain and considered my options. I couldn’t get away, but damn it, I could make their lives as miserable as mine.

  The silence shattered with my yell. “Let me go!”

  Yelps and grunts and heads popped out of tents, a few with swords.

  “What? Who?”

  “Let me go,” I yelled, satisfied when my voice echoed off the trees. Arabic curses joined the echo, then tent flaps closed.

  “Let me go!”

  “Navarro!” I recognized Nugaymath’s gravely voice from one of the tents.

  “What?” Her voice came from the woods.

  “Shut her up.”

  “Let me go!” More Arabic curses, and I actually smiled, coming as close to having fun as I could under the circumstances.

  Elena had shed her red cape and chain mail and now wore simple trousers and a loose shirt. She marched up to me, hands jammed on her narrow hips. “Let me go!” I shouted.

  “For the love of saints, woman, shut up.”

  “Don’t call me ‘woman.’ You know I hate that.”

  “Get in the tent, woman.”

  “Let me go!”

  She grabbed my shirt front and shook me. “Damn it, Kate, these women risked their lives to rescue you. Three women did not even make it back. Are you that ungrateful?”

  I swallowed. “No, but—”

  “Get in the tent.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but her nostrils flared, so I got into the tent.

  She followed me inside but squatted by the door. “I know you dislike being held here, but until Rodrigo is out of the way, I cannot let you return to Valencia.” I couldn’t see her face, and her voice gave nothing away.

  “Why did you rescue me then? Why not let Anna finish me off?”

  “Arturo was once an orphan, right? I did not want him to lose yet another mother.”

  “How touching,” I said, not wanting her to know I really meant it. “Please come sit down. Can’t we just talk for a few minutes? I know you’re angry with me.”

  “Very perceptive of you.” Elena crawled into the tent, folded her arms, and tucked her legs beneath her. I didn’t need a translator to read her body language, but I pressed
on.

  “How did you know I needed rescuing?”

  “After Nuño disappeared last week, Enzo told me about Grimaldi’s odd prophecy of your death. I knew it was likely news from your time and not merely a seer’s rantings.”

  “How did you convince Nugaymath to help? She kidnapped Arturo and sold him to Anna. Nugaymath’s daughter Rabi’a hates me.” Enough light from campfires outside filtered through the tent so that I could see Elena’s proud profile, and some of my anger melted.

  Her soft chuckle thawed the rest. “Rabi’a is too busy hating her mother for selling Arturo to feel much for you. Besides, she thinks she loves Arturo.”

  I snorted. “Everyone loves a Romeo and Juliet story until it’s your son playing Romeo.”

  “Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Forget it. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Nugaymath cannot be convinced to do anything, but her services can be purchased.”

  My childish behavior outside had apparently loosened Elena’s tongue. If only her tongue...I tightened my jaw, so confused about what I wanted from this woman. “When you left Valencia, you joined al-Saffah?”

  She nodded. “I had always suspected they were women. Besides, what else am I to do? My future is over.” Heavy silence hung between us. “It must please you I can no longer be a soldier. I can no longer fight.”

  How was I supposed to respond to that? It was true I’d always worried about her safety, but to be exposed as she’d been? “Elena, I never wanted this. Never.”

  She hugged her knees to her chest and laughed harshly. “Do you realize what has happened?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Luis Navarro is now truly dead. I can no longer keep my brother alive, in even a small way, by living his life.”