by Kris Tualla
Also By Kris Tualla:
Medieval:
Loving the Norseman
Loving the Knight
In the Norseman’s House
Renaissance:
A Nordic Knight in Henry’s Court
A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece
A Nordic Knight and his Spanish Wife
18th Century:
A Discreet Gentleman of Discovery
A Discreet Gentleman of Matrimony
A Discreet Gentleman of Consequence
A Discreet Gentleman of Intrigue
A Discreet Gentleman of Mystery
and
Leaving Norway
Finding Sovereignty
Regency:
A Woman of Choice
A Prince of Norway
A Matter of Principle
Contemporary:
An Unexpected Viking
A Restored Viking
A Modern Viking
*****
For Aspiring Authors:
A Primer for Beginning Authors
Becoming an Authorpreneur
A Nordic Knight
of the
Golden Fleece
Kris Tualla
A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
© 2014 by Kris Tualla
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.
ISBN-13: 978-1501062827
ISBN-10: 1501062824
This book is dedicated to my husband,
who supports my efforts without fail,
and brags to everyone about my books,
even though
he won’t read them.
Chapter One
November 19, 1518
Barcelona, Spain
Jakob Hansen sat astride his weary destrier, Warrior, and gazed down the steep hill at the city of Barcelona, nestled like a sleeping sea lion along the edge of the brilliantly blue Mediterranean Sea.
“Ah. At last.” Sir Percival Bethington turned in his saddle to face Jakob. “After forty days of wandering through France, I feel a bit like the Israelites spying their promised land for the first time.”
Jakob snorted. “Let’s pray that we are not entering something far worse.”
Bethington returned his regard to the city below. “True words, my brother.”
Relief and trepidation warred within Jakob’s gut. The journey through France took longer than they anticipated, mainly because Percival refused to travel on any day that looked as though it might rain.
Jakob rubbed his aching right thigh. If he were honest with himself, he suspected some of Percival’s refusals were intended to allow him to rest his injured leg. Jakob did not want to ask the man outright—to do so might embarrass them both—but he never argued with the English knight when a day devoid of travel was declared.
Jakob smiled a little at the recollections.
Though he was attending the Order of the Golden Fleece to represent King Christian the Second of Denmark and Norway, he had spent the last several months in England serving King Henry the Eighth. As a result, Henry paid for Jakob’s easy passage to Barcelona in the company of his own pampered representative, Sir Bethington.
Spending the two extra weeks elongating their journey at comfortable inns with fine food was in no way a hardship. Only his eagerness to reach Spain and begin his search for the Lady Avery Albergar of Toledo prompted his desire to move forward more quickly. His leg, on the other hand, greatly appreciated the respite.
Bethington glanced at the hazy sky, pale grey as a dove and hiding the sun, but offering no imminent threat of a downpour. A chilly breeze gusted up the hill, and he tightened his neck scarf.
“We ought to go on now. We still must find the house, and it is well past noon already.”
Jakob nodded, and followed Percival’s steed down the slope. Askel, his valet, and Denys, Bethington’s man, came behind him, each leading a pair of heavily laden pack mules. The knights decided to forgo a wagon during this last part of their journey, due to the mountainous landscape.
Jakob had no idea what to expect of the Order, which was meeting in Barcelona’s Cathedral de Eulalia for the second time in three years, and he had no idea how he would find Avery, who escaped four months ago from England and headed to somewhere in Spain. But he was greatly looking forward to sleeping in the same bed every night, and spending time in a seat that didn’t rock and sway beneath him.
*****
Locating Barcelona Cathedral proved quite simple. The massive Gothic structure loomed over the city like a giant stone troll waiting to devour the disorderly and disobedient. Once inside its towering walls, Jakob made enquiries of the Spanish priests regarding the location of the leased house which he and Bethington would share while attending the Order’s gathering.
Percival could have done so himself—as the men traveled these past weeks, they spent their mornings conversing in Spanish for the practice—but since losing the language competition to Jakob, and their shared tutor to unexplained circumstances, the Englishman’s confidence was dashed.
Not only did the priest give Jakob directions to the house they were leasing, but the knights were presented with wrapped and tied bundles containing the robes they were required to wear when they attended the Order.
That was unexpected.
Jakob shot a questioning gaze at Bethington, who shook his head and gave a little shrug. The men accepted the packages, and Jakob wondered where they could tie them onto their over-laden mules. He blew an impatient sigh, resigned to carry the bulky thing on his lap.
“You may hesitate in Spanish, I haven’t a care about that. But you will speak to me in Norsk,” Jakob prodded in that language. The men and their entourage were once again winding through Barcelona’s angled streets, following the directions given by the priest.
Percival smiled and nodded; their afternoon conversations in the Germanic Norsk flowed much more easily for him than the Romantic Spanish language did. “Ja.”
The men rode northeast along the Carrer de la Princesa, as they were instructed. The end of the narrow road called Carrer dels Assaonadors, where the leased house was located, was said to be less than half a mile from the Cathedral and would prove an easy walk, much to Jakob’s relief.
The street they traversed now was lined with large limestone palazzos; clearly this was an area of the city where the wealthy had chosen to build their homes.
The huge houses were graced with an abundance of shuttered windows, many facing the sea in an attempt to catch the capricious breezes which chased each other through these manmade canyons of stone. Most of the houses had heavy, terracotta-tiled roofs, and inner courtyards—which could be glimpsed through an occasional wrought iron gate.
When the men reached the road called Carrer Montcada, however, they were prevented from continuing their brief journey. A phalanx of men and women stood three and four deep along both sides of that prominent street, blocking their way.
All heads were turned to Jakob’s right. Whatever held the
ir communal interest was approaching from that side, and invisible to Jakob around the edge of the impressive palazzo on the corner.
“What is it?” Percival asked.
Jakob shrugged. “I can’t see past this building. But I hear a drum.”
A quartet of white horses moved slowly into view, their driver holding them back to match the pace of a stately human procession. Their black polished traces gleamed dully in the dim afternoon light, and their bridles’ headpieces sported black-feathered plumes. The cool intermittent breeze caused the horses’ tails to tickle their legs, and they whisked them in irritation.
The horses were held in check by a teamster dressed in black and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He kept his head low.
“Funeral,” Jakob murmured.
“Yes,” Percival agreed.
An ornate, black-and-gilt wagon gradually moved into view. Stretched along its generous length was a very large casket. A few of the observers threw flowers onto the wagon; some made the sign of the cross and kissed their rosaries. Others merely watched in curious silence.
Judging by the outrageous size of the casket, and the plethora of gilded carvings covering its surface, the deceased was either very obese, or very wealthy.
Most likely both.
“Can you see how long the procession is?” Jakob leaned forward in his saddle, but he was too far behind the crowd to be able to see around the corner.
“No.” Bethington pointed toward the procession. “But that must be the wife.”
A woman, dressed all in black and carrying a bouquet of white flowers of a type Jakob didn’t recognize, walked about five yards behind the hearse, as if to distance herself from the dead man.
She held her head high, nonetheless. Her back was stiff and straight, and she walked in a slow measured cadence with the drum beating behind her. Her bearing was almost defiant in nature, making Jakob wonder what sort of marriage this might have been.
Content was not a word that leapt to the forefront of his consideration.
Though her face was covered by a veil of black lace, something about her deportment pinged in Jakob’s mind. He leaned sideways toward Bethington, his eyes remaining fixed on the widow.
“Does she—” Before he could finish the question, a wet gust of sea air lifted the edge of the woman’s veil.
“Good God!” Percival breathed. “Is that—?”
Jakob’s heart tripled its own cadence in an instant. He stared hard at the widow, and mightily willed the breeze to blow again. To bless him with another glimpse.
An impulse prompted him to call out her name, before a hard slap of good sense closed his mouth. As she crossed his field of vision, passing between the rows of gathered bystanders, Jakob saw his chance fading.
Please, God. Let me see her.
The veil edged up again, higher this time on a stronger gust, and he saw the woman’s aristocratic profile, pale skin, and neat black brows.
Percival grabbed Jakob’s arm. “She looks like the Lady Avery.”
Jakob nodded, unable to conjure a coherent sentence from the multitude of realizations bashing around in his head—until one thought bubbled to the top.
“Perdóneme,” he called out to the well-dressed man standing closest to Warrior. “Que ha muerto?” Who has died?
The gentleman looked up, squinting in the pale afternoon glare. “Señor Paolo Pacheco Mendoza, Vizconde de Catalonya.”
A vizconde? Jakob imagined that would be a step down for a woman of Avery’s status—if the widow proved to be her.
“Y el nombre de su esposa?” he pressed.
The man looked at him as if he was daft. Then with a shift of expression, which Jakob interpreted as extending grace for an obvious foreigner, he replied, “Su nombre es Señora Averia Galaviz de Mendoza, Vizcondesa de Catalonya.”
Averia. Avery. Vizcondesa of Catalonya.
Married. Now widowed. Skitt.
*****
Jakob sat in his saddle, stunned and unmoving, until the occupants of the crowd gradually returned to their previous occupations and their path was opened. Percival cleared his throat. Jakob lifted his eyes to meet the other knight’s.
“I believe we continue this way.” He nudged his horse forward.
Askel and Denys waited for Jakob to follow his fellow knight before they fell in behind him, leading the tethered pack mules.
Obviously now was not the time to discuss what they has just witnessed, and the glint in Bethington’s eyes made that clear; but he had seen what Jakob saw. The set of the Englishman’s jaw communicated that he had recognized the lady as well.
Averia Galaviz de Mendoza.
Avery had been married.
Is that why she turned his proposal aside and left England so suddenly—to be married to some other man?
If so, this union must have been arranged far in advance. Four months was barely enough time for her to travel the distance, take vows, and lose this husband. Her second husband.
Who was not him.
The idea taunted Jakob with vicious jabs, ridiculing him without mercy for daring to hope that he might yet, at the age of thirty-two, find a woman to share his life. Now that door was not only slammed shut, but wrapped in heavy iron chains and hung with an enormous lock.
How could he have misjudged her affections so completely, he wondered. When he held her in his arms… He could still feel the curves of her frame pressed against his, and smell the soft aroma of her perfume. Jakob gave his head a quick shake to dispel the excruciating memory.
Perhaps it was a monetary decision. Perhaps she did not have the income which he assumed that her status as the noble childhood friend of King Henry’s wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, and her position as the queen’s chief lady-in-waiting would provide.
Even if that were true, there was no reason to believe she might be tossed from the Tudor court and be left to her own devices. She could remain safely at court throughout Catherine’s lifetime.
Averia Galaviz de Mendoza.
Bethington rode in front of him. Wisps of his dark brown hair were loosened from its ties by the brisk breezes and flailed airily about his head. He cast a worried glance back at Jakob now and again, his clear green eyes bright in the dimming day.
During their six-week journey, Jakob eventually told the Englishman—who had, himself, courted Avery unsuccessfully for a year before Jakob arrived in London—the whole of what transpired between him and the beautiful Spanish lady. Including, of course, Jakob’s spurned offer of marriage to the woman known in the Tudor court as the Ice Maiden, made just three days before Avery disappeared from England without explanation.
Percival offered all the appropriate sounds of understanding and co-misery and then, at his urging, the pair of knights commiserated in the tavern until morning. That was the one day that they did not travel even though the capricious French weather was unusually pleasant and accommodating.
Averia Galaviz de Mendoza.
Skitt.
Chapter Two
“This should be the right house.”
Bethington’s statement shook Jakob from his melancholy. He tilted his head back and looked up at the building, three stories tall and looking solid as the stone from which it was crafted.
Jakob nodded. He and Percival dismounted and approached the home. Percival lifted, and then dropped, the heavy iron knocker, summoning anyone from behind the dark wood-and-iron gate. “The leasing agent said that the house should be staffed…”
An unfriendly face appeared in a little square, and barred, opening.
“How may I help you?” the man asked in Spanish.
“I believe you expect us,” Jakob answered in kind. “I am Sir Jakob Hansen of Norway and Denmark, and this is Sir Percival Bethington of England.”
Jakob noted that the man’s brow twitched when he heard the Old Testament name. His questioning eyes flickered over Jakob’s tall frame, pausing on his golden hair and blue eyes.
Jakob wondered if, while he b
ided in Spain, he might be wise to call himself by his middle name Petter. Queen Catherine’s parents, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, had driven all Jews out of Spain only a quarter of a century earlier. If he did so, that might ease his path in this determinedly Catholic land.
The man sniffed, deciding. “Yes. One moment.” Then he disappeared.
Jakob cut his gaze to Percival, wondering if the Englishman was thinking about Lady Avery and their startling discovery— because in truth, he could think of nothing else.
Bethington flashed a rueful, tight-lipped smile, but said nothing.
With a loud clank, the bar was lifted from behind the gate. Then both of the wide paneled doors were pulled open from the inside, their hinges groaning in thirsty protest.
Jakob stepped back and took Warrior’s reins. He led the big stallion through the opening into the cobbled courtyard inside, where the clop of his iron shoes reverberated off the house’s white stone walls as if to announce the knights’ awaited arrival.
The ground level of the structure was comprised of the palazzo’s service areas—the workshops and enclosures which would be dispersed around the perimeter of the main house if this home was located in the countryside and not the center of a busy seaport city: stables, carriage house, storehouses, and kitchens, among others.
The men handed their mounts to a pair of young grooms, who led the four horses into the stable. The quartet of mules waited patiently, each with one leg cocked and head down, until their packs were unloaded by three house servants under the watchful eye of the majordomo.
“How many servants abide here?” Jakob asked.
“I believe there is a staff of about two dozen,” Percival replied.
The majordomo, whose name was Señor Esparza, spoke to Askel and Denys, both of whom had been listening to a-month-and-a-half’s worth of their employers’ Spanish conversations.
