The Crown of Valencia

by Catherine Friend

  I struggled to speak around the lump in my throat. “Perhaps Rodrigo will forgive you. He—”

  “—has been knifed in the buttocks by you and humiliated by me. He will not soon forget either. No, my life as El Cid’s favorite is over.”

  Maybe the darkness helped, or perhaps Elena’s loneliness trumped her anger, but we began to talk, little by little, as we used to. I avoided mentioning Solana or Nuño or Arturo or Anna or Rodrigo and my purpose for coming back in time, since all those topics would lead us down painful paths. We talked of Duañez and the community’s struggle to survive. As we talked, a soft voice whispered in my head, Stay. Stay in this century. I shot bolt upright.

  “What?” Elena asked.

  “Nothing.” Impossible. I wouldn’t do that to Arturo. He’d been ready to return to our own time after only a few days. I wouldn’t be so selfish as to condemn him to this life. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  After ten more minutes, it was as if all our conflicts, and all those years, had fallen away, and for a short time, we were simply two women talking. However, my heart struggled to be consistent as we sat in the warm, dark tent. It wasn’t fair, but I wanted all of her while I was in this century. In fact, a crazy idea occurred to me. What if, after Arturo and I returned to the future, I came back to visit now and then? What if, while other families took vacations to the Grand Canyon, we took one to eleventh century Spain? Would that be possible?

  No. As I watched Elena talking, I realized how arrogant I was to even imagine I could hold Elena in my life with just two weeks a year. Despite this, a tiny spark caught fire in my heart, and I so desperately wanted this woman in my life that at one point I forgot myself, reached out, and touched her thigh.

  Elena froze up quicker than a Canadian lake and rolled to her feet. “I am tired. If you think you can refrain from waking everyone up again, I would like to return to my tent.”

  Stay here, stay here, my head screamed. “Please unchain me.”

  “No.”

  “When do you expect to release me?”

  Elena opened the tent flap, firelight flickering across her boots, the cool air brushing across my skin. “Sooner than anticipated.” I waited. “Rodrigo is not well. The old Jew stopped bringing him the ale after Anna exposed me. Rodrigo shakes and shudders and rants, I am told. He sleeps but grows ever wearier. You might have been right about that substance in the ale, but no matter now, Rodrigo has lost the will to fight, some say the will to live.” Her voice should have rung with triumph, but all I heard was a deep sadness. “Because the army has already begun to break up, I will not have to do anything to stop Rodrigo from taking Valencia. He will fail all on his own.” She stepped outside. “It is over. In just a few days a sick Rodrigo will slink away, leaving Valencia to Ibn Jehaf and al-Rashid to fight each other for the city until one is dead. Goodnight, Kate.” The flap slapped shut.

  No, no, no. That would not be what happened. Because my young, inexperienced son did not stand a chance against Ibn Jehaf, even if Anna thought she could protect him, I refused to cave in to the heavy sadness that hit once Elena left. This wasn’t over yet. Until June 15, four days from now, I was still in the game. I wouldn’t give up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Al-Saffah’s camp filled the small clearing, but through a break in the twisted cork trees, I could see the blue foothills of the Sierra de Cuenca shimmering in the sun’s haze. Myrtle bushes formed a protective snarl around us, the buds just breaking.

  Breakfast was a mug of white milky liquid apparently fermented from a vegetable root. Both the archer who brought it and I lacked the language skills to communicate such details, but its thick sweetness was welcome. Despite my bravado last night, my body continued to fight the effects of being shot, and all I seemed able to do was sit around or nap. This was fortunate because the chain prohibited anything else.

  My guard changed every hour, since apparently the duty was too boring to be sustained beyond this. Each woman sat nearby, probably less to stand guard than to make sure I didn’t start shooting off my mouth again.

  The fifth guard was Rabi’a, who wore a long woven blue shift and wide loose trousers with patched knees and frayed hems that dragged on the ground. She handed me a bowl of something warm, then sat cross-legged under a nearby tree. She seemed smaller, and more pinched than I remembered.

  I blew on my spoon to cool the soup. “Rabi’a, you and I didn’t begin well that day in the Zaragozan market. I’m sorry if I was rude.”

  She looked at me, blinking those warm brown eyes framed with impossibly long lashes. Her wide cheekbones and broad nose were perfectly balanced with voluptuous lips. No wonder Arturo had been captivated. Mouth compressed, she didn’t speak.

  “I’m very angry with your mother for selling Arturo...your Busaybah.” Little Kiss. The young woman’s long strong fingers tightened their grip on her knees. “Rabi’a, how old are you?”

  “Seventeen.” Her low voice was smooth as honey.

  “Do you miss Arturo?” I was rewarded for my patience with a nod barely perceptible to the naked eye. “You are seventeen, yet your mother still treats you like a child.” Look at me. I should talk.

  She blinked rapidly for a minute until her lashes became wet triangles, then she rose without effort and disappeared into the woods. While another woman soon replaced her, at least I had planted the seed. Now if only Rabi’a would water it with her own tears.

  Mid-afternoon the need to escape, to do something gripped me around the throat, so when Nugaymath passed between two nearby tents, I called her over. Surprisingly, she came. When she was close enough, I swung my foot out in my own version of a half spin kick and connected with the side of her head. With a yell, she dropped and rolled out of my reach. “That was for selling my son!” I shouted.

  Curses flowed freely from both of us as we faced each other. “You ugly, camel-faced whore,” she sputtered.

  “Takes one to know one,” I shouted. Her eyes widened when she sorted through my primitive speech, and nearby women began to murmur in alarm.

  “Sell me,” I commanded before she could release another colorful string of names for me. “Sell me to Paloma de Palma as you did my son. She will pay you twice what she paid for Arturo.” Not true, of course.

  The woman’s fierce dreadlocks bristled. “Good idea. But I am done with Valencia. We will ambush travelers instead. Besides, Navarro say you stay here, so you stay here.”

  Frustrated, I pulled on the chain, ignoring the sharp dig into my wrist, and Nugaymath took a step back. “How could you sell a boy?” I snapped. “Have you no sense of what is wrong with that? Do you have no human feelings at all? Are you an animal?”

  Wrong thing to say. Nugaymath drew her sword and crouched, no doubt trying to figure out how to both avoid my kicks and kill me. I stepped back to loosen the chain’s tension and raised my hands in the fighting stance.

  Elena appeared out of nowhere and stepped between us. “Enough.”

  Nugaymath’s sword trembled in anger, and for a second I feared she would slash right through Elena to get to me. “My warriors are starving. The Christians have stolen or bought all the food in the area.” She lowered her sword a fraction. “Have you not seen Rabi’a? She is nothing but bones.” I swallowed at the fear seeping into Nugaymath’s voice. “I sold your child to save my own.” When she stepped back and sheathed her sword, my breath escaped in a low, shuddering sigh. “You are a mother. You must do what you can to save your child, and so must I. With the money from Paloma, I sent riders to Zaragoza for food. I’ll buy fabric for new clothes. We have broken swords to repair, more bows to make.”

  I held up a hand, weary with the weight of the chain, and I suddenly saw history as a long string of mothers, and fathers, doing what they thought they must for their children. Nugaymath whirled on her heel, leaving Elena and me alone, save for the guard now sitting safely out of range of my foot. Speaking of starvation, had Father Ruiz delivered my message? Did Marta, José, and th
e others have food to eat? “She is right, you know,” I said. I didn’t want Elena to leave. “We must all do for our children.”

  “Kate, I do not know why I spoke so freely last night. You continue to bewitch even as you infuriate.” She looked me squarely in the eye. “Nothing we have said, or done, changes anything.”

  “But Elena, you have a child. Her future will be different, will be wrong, if the Moors take over this land.”

  “The Moors cannot conquer all of Iberia. They are too disorganized, and King Alfonso, King Sancho, and the others are too strong.”

  “But the Moors do conquer the peninsula, and then much of the world. I have seen the history books, Elena. I’ve read what happens.”

  “Your history said I would die at Rodrigo’s hand. I did not. Who is to say that everything else will not change?”

  “First, Rodrigo did not kill you this time. And second, your role in history, and please do not take this as an insult, will not likely alter what is inevitable.” Elena squinted toward the horizon. “Please, sit with me again. I’m going mad with boredom and worry for Arturo. The least you can do is help the time pass.”

  She smirked. “Women who get too close to you can find themselves kicked in the head. You have acquired new skills these last years.”

  “I will not kick you.”

  She considered me with the wariness of a former lover, all trust destroyed, but did sit down, stretching out her long legs, her boot leather worn to nearly white across the toes and heel.

  “Elena, what will you do now? You cannot ride with Nugaymath forever. Al-Saffah are bandits. They exist only to spread terror.”

  She stared past me. “Once I help Nuño and the others save Valencia from Rodrigo and Tahir, perhaps I will give it some thought.”

  I was ready for her this morning, after lying awake all night, aching for how Elena’s life had been turned upside down. “You are a warrior. You are a leader of men.”

  She smiled without a hint of humor, and I suddenly remembered how impossible it was to rattle her, to tap into the insecurities all normal women carried around and nursed. “You forget, Kate Vincent. Luis Navarro is gone forever. As Elena Navarro, I can lead nothing but a horse to water.”

  “Bullshit.” Once again, eight years melted away, and we were sitting by the hearth at Duañez, sipping spiced ale and sparring gently.

  “You do not understand the conventions of this time. I—”

  “I know of many stories of women in history who led, perhaps not with a sword in her hand, but a leader nonetheless.”

  “I have a child. Perhaps I will settle down and raise more.”

  A sharp dagger through the ribs would have hurt less than her words. “But what will you do?”

  “I will be a mother. That is enough.”

  No, it’s not, I wanted to scream. But then the fight drained out of me, like blood from a wound too massive to close. I shrugged. “You’re right. Perhaps you should settle down. Return to Duañez . Be a farmer. Raise sheep with José.”

  She laughed, really laughed, sending the most amazing rush to my head. Shaking her head, she stood, and I with her. “You are amazing, Kate. Chained to a stake, and still...” She gazed at me, inscrutable. “I had forgotten that about you.”

  “Unchain me.”

  “No, I cannot. You will help Rodrigo.” She turned sharply on one heel and left me alone again.

  At least the guard was gone, since the women had finally relaxed, realizing I could not get away. Rabi’a brought my supper, so I tried again. “Rabi’a, Arturo is in grave danger.” Head bowed, she played with the tip of her black braid, which curled around her neck. “There are many people who want him dead. If I do not get back to Valencia, he might die.”

  She bit her lower lip. “My mother...I cannot...”

  “Rabi’a, Arturo will die if you don’t let me go.”

  “I cannot,” she whispered and left.

  Damn it.

  I used the handle of my wooden soup spoon and chipped away about an inch of soil around the stake. The handle broke, so I dug with the shattered edge. After an hour my frantic claw marks surrounded the stake, but did nothing to loosen it.

  *

  I spent most of the night staring at the water-stained ceiling of my tent. I was almost out of time and Elena wouldn’t listen. The one night we’d spent together hadn’t meant very much, obviously. I clenched my fists, unable to bear the idea that I might not accomplish my goal. I’d told Kalleberg it was nearly an impossible task, but now that I was here, and could sense how wrong everything had gone, I knew the wave of change crashing through time was real, and I was desperate to stop it. If Elena didn’t relent, that wave would hit me, Arturo, Grimaldi, and even Carlos and Anna. I believed we’d cease to exist. Anger replaced my earlier resignation.

  The next morning my joints burned as hot as my anger. Willing the pain away, I was finally able to drag myself outside and bellow for Elena until the other women, complaining loudly, yelled for her themselves. She stood outside the invisible line around my tent, stiff as a board. I glared at her, voice shaking after a night of little sleep. “You’ve got to let me go. I insist.”

  “Insist?” Now both thick brows arched smoothly.

  “Look, I’m not some goddamn property you can chain to the ground. Does it excite you to know I’m shackled, unable to flee from you?”

  Now two roses bloomed on her cheeks. “How dare you. Clearly I was wrong to let you seduce me back at Valvanera. I—”

  “I seduced you?” I practically screamed.

  We glared at each other, and a tiny piece of me died inside. It really was over. “You have no feelings, do you?” She raised another eyebrow. “I feel so sorry for little Solana. She’ll be raised by a mother without emotion. Then when she’s an adult, poor Solana Súarez, daughter of Nuño Súarez, will have no idea how to relate to others.” I now dug as frantically around her heart as I’d dug with the wooden spoon around the stake.

  Elena stepped back as if slapped. “How did you know?”

  “I figured it out and Nuño admitted it.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. “I was weak with missing you.” Her eyes flew open, flashing in the light. “I am better now.”

  “You are heartless and care about no one but yourself. You don’t care about either Súarez in your life, Solana or Nuño.”

  “I did not give Solana her father’s name, nor mine. Life is hard enough without being the daughter of two Caballeros de Valvanera, one of them a woman who lives as a man. I gave her the name of my mother’s family. It is a good, strong name, and I am not worried about her emotions. Solana Pidal will grow up to be safe and strong.”

  Solana Pidal? S. Pidal? Christ. I dove into my tent and dumped out my saddlebag. I grabbed the book and dashed back outside, searching for the dog-eared page with trembling fingers. There. I held up the book. “Do you know what this is?”

  She snorted. “It is a book. A very small book.”

  “Come closer. I won’t kick you.” I opened the page and thrust it into Elena’s face. “It’s in English, but—”

  “Holy Bullocks! How could someone write that small? And so perfectly?”

  “No, this wasn’t written by a person’s hand. Just forget that for now. Look here, on this line. You cannot read English, but a person’s name is the same no matter the language, correct? What name do you see here?”

  Elena moved closer, tipping the book for more light. Her face paled. “S. Pidal.”

  “Now look at this date in the next sentence.”

  “1109.”

  “Fifteen years from now. You’ll have to take the rest of this story on faith, and to do that, search your memory. Have I ever lied to you?”

  She paused, looking into the trees, then shifted her gaze to me. “Not that I know of.”

  “I’m not lying to you now. Here’s what this paragraph says:

  After eight years as a slave in a minor official’s harem, S. Pidal was able to organi
ze a rebellion among the harem women of Zaragoza. Using secret messages passed by servants, the women arranged a time when they all fled their harems, killing guards as they did so. But before the women could escape the city, Zaragozan soldiers surrounded them. All six hundred women were killed that afternoon, their bodies carted to the edge of the city and left in a pile as carrion.

  I slammed the book shut. Elena’s eyes had gone black with shock. “That is not my Solana. The ‘S’ could be one of many names.”

  “The years work out. She will be eighteen in 1109. This is the world’s history, Elena. What if S. Pidal is Solana?”

  “I will protect her.”

  “How? What if Rodrigo kills you? What if someone else kills you? What if you get sick? How can you protect your daughter against something that will happen fifteen years from now? How can you be certain you’ll be able to prevent this?”

  “That book lies. It is evil—”

  “Why is it that whenever Christians come up against something they don’t understand or do not want to think about, it’s suddenly evil? The book isn’t evil. It’s fact. It was written in 1986, about events that will happen in fifteen years.”

  “But you read of my death. That did not happen. So this awful rebellion may not happen.”

  My jaw twitched with tension. “Are you willing to count on that? Are you willing to bet your daughter’s life on that? As long as the real timeline is not restored, you’ll never know.”

  “Solana may die in what you call the real timeline.” Elena’s voice faded to almost nothing.

  “Raid party!” called Nugaymath. The camp suddenly sprang to life. Excited women ran for their horses. “Navarro! Come!”

  I grabbed her hand. “Under the real timeline, the Moors will control very little of the peninsula in 1109. She won’t be in a harem. She’ll be a free woman.”

  Elena touched her forehead briefly, and my heart pounded. But then she raised her head, and shook it, like a woman shaking off a bad dream. “No, this is too preposterous.”