The Crown of Valencia Read online

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” He shot me a look so shocked that my breath caught in my throat. “What is it?”

  He leapt to his feet, book gripped to his chest, and fled the room. When I followed and knocked on his door, he refused to let me in. He’d locked the door.

  Shaking my head, I returned to the living room. “Clearly something in the book upset him, but he won’t talk to me.” I tried to focus, but half of me was still outside Arturo’s door, trying both to read his mind and calm his fears. “Professor, can you tell what the world is like under Islam? Is it any better than the history we know? Any worse? The Moors were more tolerant and educated than Christians.”

  “I knew you’d ask that. Why should you restore history if things improve, even if it means we no longer exist? I’ve been wondering the same thing, so I’ve been reading up on that. Things go well for a few centuries, but then, as is true with most religions, factions develop. A radical one comes to power in Asia, and life gets ugly everywhere, just as it did under Christian domination.”

  I tugged at my hair. “Enough. I can’t absorb any more. All I need to remember is to get Rodrigo on the throne on June 15, and to make sure he doesn’t murder Elena.”

  “You read the passage from the book I gave you?” His voice was gentle.

  I nodded. “But how can I protect her from Rodrigo? He’s a warrior. I’m an inventory manager.”

  “Find her. Stay with her night and day.” I liked the night part, but Elena was too independent to tolerate me as her shadow. I leaned back against the sofa, working out a cramp in my calf. “I don’t know how one person can do this.”

  “Who back there can help you?”

  I closed my eyes. “Grimaldi, Liana, Nuño Súarez, Enzo Montoya, Fadri Colón, Marta from Duañez, and Elena. I know that sounds like enough people, but without Elena I’ll never be able to pull this off.”

  “Kate, if you don’t at least try, I believe we’re all doomed. The wave has reached the early fourteenth century.”

  I scribbled on the nearest folder. “The wave’s advancing almost a century a week. When will it get close enough to start affecting us?” Helpless, we stared at my figures. “What if I cease to exist before I get the job done?”

  He dropped his hands in his lap, shaking his head. “I’m an educated, analytical historian. That I’m discussing time travel as casually as I discuss air travel still panics me. That I believe history is fracturing would make me a laughing stock in my circles. I have no real answers for any of this.”

  Arturo chose that moment to march into the room. He dropped the book at my feet. Saying nothing about his reddened eyes, I picked up the book and flipped through the footnotes. One page had been ripped out.

  “Arturo! This is the professor’s book. You—”

  “I am tired of being treated like a child.” Unsmiling, my half-child-half-man left the room without another word.

  *

  The next three days were hellish. I gave Laura power of attorney to pay my bills and take care of things. My will already named Laura and Deb as Arturo’s legal guardians should I die. The hardest part had been explaining to Laura where I was going. “Spain? Now?”

  “It’s Elena. She’s still alive.”

  “Wow.”

  “She needs help, so I must go to Spain.”

  “She called you? After all this time she just says ‘Hey, I need help’?”

  I hated lying to my best friend. “Not directly. It’s complicated.”

  “Your life always is.” In the end she’d accepted my reasoning, hugged me, and told me to stay safe and hurry home.

  I packed, then Kalleberg picked up Arturo and me and drove us to Laura and Deb’s, where Arturo would spend the next few weeks. Kalleberg would come with me to Spain, but not follow me back in time. Instead, he’d wait in the cave for his history books to change, then he’d send me a sign, somehow, perhaps by putting a note on the ledge and hoping it came back to me. Then I’d know if I had succeeded or not.

  For three days Arturo had been Mr. Ice Cube, tearing my heart apart every time he looked at me. But now, four hours before our flight, when my throat tightened at what lay ahead, he stood by Laura and Deb’s front door, zipping up my jacket. “You have the boarding pass I printed out?” he asked, straightening my collar, looking me in the eye. My son was now as tall as I was.

  “Yes, ‘Mom,’” I said.

  “And from Madrid, how will you get to Zaragoza? Hitchhike?”

  “Rent a car or take the train.”

  “And at Zaragoza, will you sleep on the streets?”

  I smiled. “Hyatt Regency.”

  “And how will you get to the cave?”

  “Bus 27 from the Plaza.”

  “And will the nice bus driver tell you which stop you need?” Arturo asked.

  “Yes, but if not, I’ll see the sign that says ‘cueva.’” I grabbed his hands as he nervously plucked lint from my sleeves. “I’ve done this before, kiddo. I’ll be fine.”

  Our eyes met and we were both suddenly out of words, so I held him tightly, surprised he squeezed just as hard, as if we both ached to imprint the other’s body onto our own. Finally he pulled back, his eyes dry. “Go save the world, Mom.”

  I swallowed, dragging a sleeve across my face. “Okay.”

  As Kalleberg backed down the driveway, I kept my eye on Arturo standing on the front step, flanked by protective Laura and sturdy Deb, until we turned the corner and Arturo disappeared.

  *

  Everything went just as I’d laid out for Arturo. Once at Zaragoza, Professor Kalleberg and I visited the Aljafería to nose around for more information we could use. Kalleberg’s jaw dropped at the massive walls, the soaring arches, the impressive towers. “How can this be so old and still be standing?”

  I asked the woman at the information booth about the guide, Carlos Sanchez, but she shrugged bony shoulders and pointed toward the Administration offices. The palace housed the Aragonese government offices, so I stopped there.

  An older man with smudged glasses and yellow teeth peered at me. “Carlos? He quit.” The man resumed his filing.

  “Do you know when?”

  He stopped, exhaling with irritation. “Five or six years ago.”

  “Do you have his home address?”

  The clerk rolled his eyes, as if I’d just asked him to re-file a thousand folders by date instead of name. “He just left. Oh, wait.” Suddenly interested, he straightened. “Carlos. His daughter came in shortly after he quit. Said she couldn’t find her father anywhere. He’d disappeared.”

  The professor and I exchanged glances. Carlos knew about the cave at Mirabueno. Had he used it?

  Being near the palace brought back a flood of tastes—spicy goat meat at al-Mu’tamin’s banquet, sweet honey cakes, the mango juice I shared with Elena. My feet wanted to fly straight to Mirabueno, but we’d decided to wait until morning, so once I was back in the past I’d have a full day for travel. But now that I was close, every second I waited was an irritant to be swatted aside so I could move ahead, so I could find Elena.

  *

  At six a.m. I finally got up. Today was May 20. Three and one half weeks until June 15. Weariness fled as my adrenaline kicked in, and within an hour, Kalleberg and I were on the bus heading to the western edge of Zaragoza. When I asked the driver about Mirabueno, she shook her head. “Never heard of it.”

  I peered ahead, searching for landmarks. Not until we passed it did I see the ‘cueva’ sign and recognize the steep street I’d climbed with the Whipples, bumper-sticker collectors extraordinaire. We got off at the next intersection and walked back. My heavy backpack cut into my shoulders, and poor Kalleberg carried two packs. When we reached the top of the hill, I groaned. “Cerrada” signs had been pasted across the entrance. Closed. Beer bottles, cigarette butts, and used condoms littered the area.

  “It would seem this is now an altogether different sort of tourist attraction,” Professor Kalleberg said.


  I glared at the padlocked door. “How are we going to get inside?” We hadn’t come prepared to cut through a lock.

  “The hinges,” Kalleberg said. “If we can pop the pins out of the hinges, we can open the door that way.” I stared at the scholar and enjoyed his boyish grin. “Read it in a book once.” Scrounging through the long grass and weeds, we found a long, flat rock, which Kalleberg used to pound out one hinge pin, then the other. We each grabbed the edge of the door and pulled. Goosebumps spread down my arms as the protesting door squealed, but opened about eighteen inches, just wide enough to squeeze through. Thank goddess I’d lost those ten pounds two years ago. I flipped on my flashlight and slipped into the dark cave, Kalleberg right behind me.

  We stood, shining our lights around the entrance room. I inhaled the moist, cool air, then sneezed, the hollow sound unnaturally loud. I reached for the light switch by the door, smiling when the dim bulbs sprang to life. “You’ll have light while you wait,” I said to the professor. The cave might be closed, but someone still paid the light bill. I changed into my eleventh century clothes—a long brown linen skirt, linen woven tunic and heavy black shawl.

  “Very peasanty,” the professor said.

  I tied the shawl around my shoulders. “Just like in the twenty-first century, people don’t pay much attention to poor women. I’ll be able to move around without being noticed.”

  Heart racing now, I led him down the path and into the cave. After an easy ten minute walk, we reached the ledge. Weak sun still flickered across it like a beacon.

  “That’s it?” Kalleberg crowded next to my shoulder, his breath as rapid as mine. Both our antiperspirants had failed, a smell I’d have to get used to.

  “Yes.” We moved quickly, reaching the ledge in seconds. My heart beat faster at the memory of my last journey. “Professor, you’ll be okay here? You have everything you need while you wait?”

  The lanky man, just as excited as I was, set off to one side the backpack he was keeping for his stay in the cave. “I’ll be fine. Whatever your actions, they will have taken place centuries ago, and the results should eventually be reflected in these books. I don’t know, however, which history will reach me first, the altered, fractured history, or the one that will occur when you restore the timeline.”

  I had less than one month. How I would accomplish my task remained a fuzzy snarl in my brain, but when I found Elena, she’d be able to sort through everything and come up with a plan. I drew a deep breath, wondering if this was the stupidest thing I’d ever done, but Elena needed me, even if she didn’t know it. Time had reached forward, whispered “Lion King” in my ear, and I must respond. I sent a silent promise to Arturo that I would return.

  I hefted a pack up onto the ledge. “Sure you don’t want to come along?”

  He chuckled, then lowered his head. “I’d be dead inside a week. I’m serious.”

  “I know,” I said, patting his hand.

  He swallowed once. “But, oh, how I envy you. The things you will see—”

  “You could come.” Why this sudden fear to be going alone?

  The man shook his craggy head and hugged me awkwardly. “My job is to stay here. I’ll send a note to you when I see a change in the books.”

  I nodded, took a deep breath, then scrambled up onto the ledge. The professor flung his extra pack in my lap. My legs dangled off the ledge and a horrible image flashed through my head. “My legs,” I cried. “What if they don’t come with me?” Panicking, I pulled my legs up and curled around the packs. “I don’t feel anything,” I said.

  A bright white flared overhead. Professor Kalleberg disappeared and the light consumed me. I clutched myself as my stomach churned, and time flooded the cave, sweeping me into its black ravine.

  *

  I don’t know how long I was out, but when I finally opened my eyes, I was in damp darkness broken only by the faint shred of light over the ledge. Water dripped nearby, echoing softly. Christ, my head hurt. My bones hurt. What did I expect? I was eight years older, and time travel had been no picnic on my younger body.

  I fumbled for my flashlight, so nauseous I wished I could throw up, then shone my beam on the narrow path below. Half sliding, half rolling, I made the awkward journey from ledge to path, then tried walking, or rather, staggering. I had to stop at least three times to rest, but finally the path began sloping upward. My head still pounded as I reached the entrance room, which was awash in sunlight. I sank to my knees in the warm sand, then gulped a long drink from my leather bota. I threw up, drank some more, then crawled into a sunny patch and collapsed

  *

  The smells of eastern Castile in the spring entered my nose and swirled through my body. The flowering lavender, the myrtle heavy with pollinating bees, the tall cedar trees drawing my gaze to the azure sky. I walked through the lower cottages of Duañez, but no one was around. Everyone must be in the fields. Breathless from more than the climb, I stepped lightly up the pebble path, scanning the castle windows, shutters all flung back to let in the spring, but saw no one.

  I touched my cheek. Would she notice the smile lines around my mouth? Would the ‘character’ lines by my eyes matter? I was thirty-eight now and even had a few gray hairs. No, she wouldn’t care. I hurried toward the open front door. A rooster squawked as he scooted out of my way. She would not have changed. She would be as strong, as upright, as brave as always. I would take one look at her and be unable to breathe.

  I stepped inside. “Hello?” No one sat by the hearth or stood by the wooden table. I headed down the hall, checking each room. I reached our room and stepped inside.

  Her back to me, she was fastening a wide belt over her leather tunic. Her legs were still long and firm, her hair still short but curling sweetly around her ears.

  “Elena.”

  She turned, dropped her scabbard, and stared. Fear, disbelief, loneliness, confusion crossed her face in seconds. I’d been right. I couldn’t breathe.

  As slowly as you’d approach a startled fawn, I moved toward her. “I’m real,” I said. I stopped, seeing in her face, in the lay of her shoulders, in the tilt of her head, that she did not trust her eyes or her ears. After eight years of waiting, watching, hoping I would reappear, a person gave up, let go, and could not easily regain what had been released.

  I breathed now, but just barely. Lines etched a fine path out from her eyes. A new scar ran along her jaw. My throat tightened at the dark pain around her eyes, and my need to take that pain away overcame my caution. I reached for her.

  “Kate,” she finally croaked, and our lips touched.

  “Mom? Mom!” Arturo shook my arm. “You’re muttering in your sleep, Mom. It’s embarrassing.”

  I raised my head, wiping my mouth, and squinted at Arturo in the fading light. Laughter bubbled through me. I’d woken from one dream to find myself in another. How had I done that? “Mom, you gotta get up and shake it off. Time travel made you sick as a dog.”

  I pushed his hand away. “It’s just a dream, honey. You’re really back home. Or maybe I’m just hallucinating. Time travel’s hell on my system.”

  “Mom.” Arturo sat me up and gently shook my shoulders. “I’m here. With you. In the Mirabueno cave.”

  I opened my eyes, really opened them. Arturo knelt beside me, dressed in brown baggy pants, a woven green tunic, and a moth-eaten faded brown wool coat. I pinched myself. I pinched him.

  “Ouch.”

  I staggered to my feet and looked around. Yes, I was in the right place, the low-ceilinged rock cavern that served as the entrance to the cave’s narrow path. “God damn it, Arturo Vincent,” I managed to sputter. “This had better be a dream. If it’s not, you’re grounded. Forever!”

  “Can’t do that, Mom. In the eleventh century there’s no legal age of adulthood. I checked before I came back.”

  I rested my shaking hands on my hips, trying to think. “You are in deep shit, mister.”

  “I’m here, Mom. I did it.”

  �
�I don’t understand. How—”

  Arturo grinned, flushed from this horrible victory. “I bought my plane ticket when I bought yours. The night you left I snuck out of the house and took a bus to the airport. With the time difference, it worked out great. I knew once Aunt Laura found me missing the next morning, you’d already be on your way to Mirabueno. I used your credit card to pay for the train from Madrid to Zaragoza, and here I am.”

  I pounded my forehead. “Christ, this is a disaster. And your aunts. They’ll be worried sick.”

  Arturo took a swig from a ratty Army canteen. “I left them a note explaining everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yup. I thought they deserved to know the truth.”

  I struggled to accept the nightmarish fact that my son stood beside me in the eleventh century. “What about Kalleberg?”

  “Sleeping like a baby. I left him a note, tiptoed past him, and climbed up to the ledge.” He rolled his eyes. “Man, what a ride that was.”

  “We’ll buy horses. We’ll ride to the cave at Santillana. I’m taking you back to the twenty-first century.”

  “Not a good plan. Santillana is north and west from here. By the time you get there and back, assuming there are no problems, you still have to get all the way east to Valencia in time to make everything work out. There isn’t time to take me to Santillana.”

  “You’ve got this all figured out, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  I lowered myself to the ground, leaning back against the cool rock wall. “Why, Arturo?”

  He knelt before me, eyes bright. “I have my reasons.”

  “Don’t be mysterious.”

  “You can’t do this alone. Also, if I’m here with you, you won’t be torn between me and Elena. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

  “What makes you think I’m torn?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fourteen, Mom, not blind.”

  I laid my head back. “You’re pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”