The Crown of Valencia Read online

When we arrived, all the monks had retired for the evening, save one, and the young man was able to find us some bread and cheese but was totally unsure what to do with me. Arturo and I were so tired I barely registered my surroundings, but I ended up on a hard cot in a cold, narrow room near the entrance to the Valvanera monastery, the only place the poor attending monk could think of to house an exhausted female traveler. He then escorted Arturo back into the dormitory area.

  *

  Elena took me by the hand and nearly ran from room to room through the massive monastery. “Our rooms were up those stairs, off limits to women, of course.” She winked slyly, then showed me the dining hall, a cavernous room filled with wide, rough-hewn tables and worn benches black with age.

  We’d only been at Duañez a month when Elena insisted we brave the December winds to visit the Valvanera Monastery where she’d learned so much. The monks had greeted “Luis Navarro” with deep affection. The eldest, Father Felipe, was so overcome all he could do was smile and wipe his moist eyes.

  “Now to the gardens.” I wrapped my cloak tightly around me. She led me through a small orchard, a fallow vegetable garden waiting for spring, and banks of now-dried flowers. The path led to a small stone bridge arching over an icy stream.

  “Lovely,” I murmured as water gurgled beneath the bridge.

  Standing behind me, Elena wrapped her arms and her cloak around me. “This is my favorite spot,” she said, nuzzling my neck. “When I was younger I spent hours just sitting here, thinking.”

  “Thinking about killing Moors?”

  I could feel the steady rise and fall of her bound chest against my back. “Yes.”

  “And now?” I waited, pulling her arms more tightly around me.

  “And now, if I were alone and free to think, I would consider how alike we are, Moor and Christian, and how religion is a poor reason to destroy each other.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You’re not the same woman you were when you arrived here ten years ago.” A hawk cried overhead, circling on the thermals. “What would the monks have done if they’d discovered your sex back then?”

  Elena took my hand, and we strolled across the sturdy bridge. “They would have prayed for my soul, then sent me away to a convent.”

  “And now?” She stopped, a small frown marring her brow. “If they found out now you are a woman, what would they do?”

  Pain flashed across her strong face, then she smiled wryly. “To live as a man for all these years is a sin they could not forgive. They would turn their backs on me.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  For a second Elena’s eyes matched the gray of the sky, as if she’d left and the sky had moved in. Then she pulled me to her, leaning in for a warm kiss. “I do not know, my pearl. I do not know.”

  I woke up, once again struggling with the line between reality and fantasy. My Elena dreams had begun to frustrate, even anger me. I was tired of memory ghosts. But as I sat up, looking around at the stone walls where Elena had spent so much of her youth, I felt in my gut that today was the day. Elena was here, or near, and we’d meet sometime before evening fell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Still dressed, I rose and tried to shake out the wrinkles and road dust from my skirt. A ragged circle of red soil formed on the marble floor beneath me. I checked the calendar I’d made at Grimaldi’s. May 27. Today was day eight of being back in time, and I’d done nothing but eat, sleep, and run. When I opened my door, a scowling monk directed me toward a small cold room where I waited until Arturo joined me, glowing and perky, as if he’d slept two days.

  “Señorita.” Father Ruiz entered, offering me his hand. “It is truly a pleasure to see you again after all these years. God’s grace has kept you well.” He sat in the chair opposite mine. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  I stared hard at the head priest, who still moved like an athlete despite his age, and wished I could decipher his body language, his controlled smile. What did he know? “I seek my husband Luis Navarro. I thought he might be here.”

  Father Ruiz spread his thick hands. “We have not seen Luis for many years.”

  Liar. Grimaldi’s contact said he saw Luis coming this way often. I took a deep breath. “I seek Elena Navarro. I thought she might be here.”

  The man’s face remained as unchanged as the stone wall behind him. “I believe Elena Navarro was killed by the Moors many years ago, along with all of her family, save Luis,” That had been Elena’s story. Actually Luis had been murdered and Elena the only survivor. As a woman, her opportunity for revenge against the Moors was zero, so she’d donned her dead brother’s clothes and cut her hair.

  I pursed my lips. “Her life is in danger, Father. If you care for her at all, you must tell me where she is.”

  He shrugged. “I have told you what I know.”

  I leaned forward. “Is lying still a sin in your faith?” Arturo’s eyes widened.

  Father Ruiz tucked his chin, affronted. “Lying is always a sin, my child.”

  “Especially when done by a priest,” I snapped.

  “Whoa, Mom. Lighten up.” Arturo winced. “If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.”

  Damn. She wasn’t here. According to Ruiz, she had never been here, which meant we were just as far apart as if I were still back in the future. “I’m sorry, Father, that was rude. I—it’s been hard. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  He patted my hand. “No harm done, my child. Will you now travel on to Duañez? I have more wheat to share with those poor souls if you plan to visit.”

  “Poor souls?”

  Father Ruiz shook his head. “Rodrigo’s army camped there this winter. Butchered every animal within leagues. Consumed every bit of stored grain, even that which was to be seed for this spring.”

  I snorted. “Sounds like Rodrigo.” But not Elena. How could she allow Rodrigo to destroy our community? I had only lived there six months but had come to love the rough, kind farmers and their families surrounding the wooden ‘castle’ at Duañez, my home with Elena. Marta had tried to teach me to bake bread and spin, but all my fingers had been skilled at was painting. “How are they doing?”

  “Not well. Food is scarce here, but we send them what we can. José and a few of the others have taken to begging for scraps in Burgos and bringing the food waste back to Duañez.”

  “Father Ruiz, I head for Valencia, not Duañez, but I have a message that must be delivered to Marta at Duañez. Could you see that she gets it along with your wheat?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Do you know of the Mirabueno cave on the road to Zaragoza?”

  “Yes, I have taken shelter there in a storm.”

  Since Elena had trusted him since her youth, I would too. I had no choice. I told him where Marta was to dig, and how often, and the man’s eyes widened. “You are a most generous woman, señorita.” He stood, taking my arm. “Come, let us feed you before you resume your journey.”

  While Arturo and I sat in the dining hall with a bowl of beef and mashed grain, I dropped my head back to admire the soaring arches overhead and imagined the hall filled with young, enthusiastic men, believers in the sword, and in God. Elena would have been one of them, slapping Nuño on the back, laughing at ribald jokes, listening intently to Father Ruiz’s stories of fighting glory.

  But the only sound now was our spoons clattering into the empty bowls. As a young monk led us toward the front entrance, we passed an open door, where the scratchy sounds of quill pens drew me closer. Even with the high windows unshuttered, the room was still so dark each desk required a flickering candle. Monks bent over the desks, carefully transcribing the brittle pages beside them.

  “May I?” I asked our escort. He nodded, so I stepped inside, appreciating the scent of tempura paints and freshly powdered vellum, which were thin pages made from lamb skins. I was once again back in Duañez living with Elena, mixing my own paints, hoarding both vellum and linen canvas.

  “What are they doing?
” Arturo whispered as the nearest candle flickered when our entrance sent the still air swirling.

  I’d studied manuscript illumination back in the future and was thrilled to be witnessing the real thing. “They are hand-copying books, making illuminated manuscripts like I made in the classes I took.” I asked the nearest monk what he transcribed.

  The bald man looked up from his work, then rubbed his bleary eyes. “One of our brothers has translated some of Aristotle from Arabic to Latin. I transcribe the Latin.”

  “Aristotle?” Arturo moved closer, fingers carefully brushing the top page. “He wrote in Arabic?”

  “No,” I whispered. “He wrote in Greek, but the Arabs saved the work and translated Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, lots of Greeks.” The monk had sketched a border around the text, and my fingers itched to pick up a paint brush and add color to the page, but instead I touched Arturo’s shoulder. Time to go.

  Outside, a young monk waited with our horses. He held the reins while I mounted then handed them to me. “Father Ruiz says he hopes the señorita has a safe journey and that she finds what she seeks.”

  I nodded and the monk scurried back inside. Arturo and I headed down the narrow, winding road. “Well, that was a bust,” Arturo said. “But if Elena’s not here, she must be with Rodrigo in Valencia. Let’s haul ass to get down there.”

  “Stop swearing. And something’s weird,” I said. “I can’t quite figure it out.”

  “I thought they were very polite. Calling you ‘señorita’ and me ‘Señor Arturo.’ I kind of like that.”

  Señorita. Wait. The word cut through the dull ache in my brain. On my last visit I’d come as Luis’s wife, a señora, but now he used the unmarried term. I looked back at the towering stone and a thrill ran through me. He would only call me señorita if he knew Luis was a woman, so our marriage had not been valid. “I just figured it out. Father Ruiz knows Luis is a woman.”

  “How did—”

  “C’mon.” My heart beat faster as we turned back.

  To the west several monks worked in the stables, but at the east end of the monastery, the path to the orchard and gardens was quiet, so at the first clump of trees we tied up the horses. Feeling a bit like James Bond, I slunk from tree to bush to tree with a fourteen-year-old shadow until I’d made my way around to the back of the building. We would explore the grounds first, then work on sneaking inside.

  The gardens, already lush with blooms, formed a horseshoe around the orchard. A dozen monks knelt in the garden weeding, planting, and talking quietly among themselves, and the voices were all male. Two monks burned a pile of brush near the orchard.

  Hunched over, we fought our way through the underbrush until we were closer to the orchard. No Elena. “She’s not here,” Arturo whispered, stumbling to keep up with me as I pressed on, intent on checking out the back gardens and the stone bridge. Breathing air heavy with blossoms, I reached the creek, which had swollen with the spring rains, and stopped at the most amazing sight. A young child, perhaps three or four years old, ran along the stone path among the flowers, her dark, tight curls bouncing down her back. She stopped at the bridge and I ducked behind a thick oak, pulling Arturo back with me.

  “She’s a cutie,” he whispered.

  “No, Solana, not the bridge,” scolded an older monk resting nearby.

  “But Father—”

  “No.”

  Her chin lifted defiantly and I smiled, recognizing the same look on Arturo’s face when I’d told the six-year-old not to flush pennies down the toilet to watch them spin.

  Taking in orphans was not unusual for a monastery, but Father Ruiz and Company seemed far too stodgy for this little firecracker.

  “Well, then I will climb this tree,” the stubborn child announced.

  “No, you—”

  “Fire! Fire!” The cries came from back around the curve near the orchard, where the monks had been burning brush, and even from our spot in the trees I could see the flames licking fifteen feet into the sky.

  Shouts and cries for help brought little Solana’s monk to his feet. “Stay here! I shall be right back.” He loped down the path and disappeared around the curve.

  “Don’t leave her alone,” I muttered. Sure enough, the brown robe had barely flapped out of sight when Solana turned toward the bridge, face flushed with the opportunity to reach her objective. She paused, looked over her shoulder once, then dashed for the bridge, her long yellow shift billowing against sturdy brown legs.

  “Uh oh,” Arturo said.

  With a tiny whoop and a triumphant grin, the child scampered across the bridge, then back again. Bare feet immune to the rough stone, she ran the length of the bridge over and over again, as if storing up the experience to relive when she was once again too closely guarded.

  Finally she stopped in the middle of the bridge, panting, and I sensed trouble. Now that the bridge had been conquered, the next challenge would be the low stone walls lining the bridge. I moaned softly as the girl headed straight for the wall. The shouts near the fire had begun to die out as Solana, mouth clenched in concentration, dug one toe in, then the other, and flung a pudgy leg onto the wall.

  “No, no,” I whispered. “You’re going to fall.”

  Talking happily to herself, Solana stood, arms outstretched, and walked along the wall, placing one foot in front of the other, short little toes gripping the uneven rock. Why did children constantly seek challenges their bodies were not yet able to handle, even in the eleventh century? I stepped out from the trees, unsure. The creek, nearly flooding its grassy banks, was only thirty feet away, and while I was downstream from the bridge and could reach it easily, I worried I would startle Solana into falling.

  I inhaled sharply as the girl’s arms began windmilling frantically. She was going over.

  “No!” My long legs brought me to the bank just as the child splashed off the far side of the bridge with a surprised shriek. Icy water bit through my boots as I waded into the swift current, struggling for balance myself. Within seconds a sputtering Solana swept under the bridge off to my right. Weighed down by a wet skirt, I lunged and managed to close my fingers around one wrist.

  “Oh! Oh!” Solana coughed and gagged as I pulled her to me. Arturo waded in and dragged us both from the frigid stream up onto the bank. “Oh! Oh!”

  I knelt beside her. She gagged several times, spit, then took a shuddering breath. But instead of crying, she turned her deer-eyes up at me. “You saved me. I felled in. Father Miguel will be so vexed with me. You are such a pretty lady.”

  I bit back a smile at her quick recovery, then lifted off the wet strands of hair stuck to her face and arms as Arturo squeezed water from the hem of her cotton dress.

  “And a boy! My name is Solana. Will you marry me?”

  Arturo chuckled, surprisingly gentle as he pulled twigs and leaves from her hair. “You’re lucky my mother caught you. We saw you start to lose your balance.”

  “I losted my balance. Oh!” The little girl suddenly clutched at her neck and pulled out a long chain that had been tucked into her dress. “Oh good. I didn’t losted this.”

  Stunned at the flash of yellow, I grabbed the girl’s hands. “Let me see.”

  “No, this is secret. I am not supposed to show it to anyone.”

  A lump suddenly lodged in my throat. “Please, Solana. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Clearly torn, she frowned, then smiled so wide two dimples creased her rosy cheeks. “You did saved me, so maybe Mama won’t mind.” She opened her hand slowly. “This is my magic necklace. When you miss the person who gave it to you, you just hold this little lion and think about that person and then you feel better.”

  Hanging from a dull silver chain around the girl’s neck was the Lion King keychain I’d given Elena the day we’d parted at Santillana del Mar. The paint had dulled and flaked off in places, and one leg was missing, but it was the one. There would not be another like it in the eleventh century.

  “Holy shit,”
Arturo whispered. “Disney really is everywhere.”

  My heart slowed until it became a dull thud reverberating in my ears. “Honey, where did you get this lion?”

  Little Solana dropped her treasure back inside the neck of her dress. “Mama gave it to me. She said if I got sad and missed her, I could hold the lion. Mama said the lion means she loves me.”

  “Your mama?” I could barely breath. “Does she have black hair and pretty blue eyes?”

  Solana clapped her hands. “You know my mama!”

  Fingers tingling, I sat down hard on the ground, my mind whirling like a dust storm, picking up debris then flinging it wildly away. Finally the truth stared back at me through the innocent eyes of curly-haired Solana. I was looking into the round, shining face of Elena Navarro’s daughter.

  Arturo gasped. “Mom, didn’t you give this lion to…? Is this her…?” I couldn’t reply but only stare at the stunning child before me.

  “Solana!” Solana leapt to her feet when her missing ‘nanny’ returned, followed by a handful of concerned monks who must have heard me cry out when little Solana fell. The wet, dripping clothes clinging to all three of us painted a clear picture, and either from cold or fear of being scolded, Solana began to tremble.

  As the stunned monks fussed over us, a strange ache spread up into my chest. “Thank you, señorita, señor, for helping our Solana,” the girl’s caretaker chattered. “Come, let us dry your clothes, child.” The soggy Solana darted away and ran in circles around the nearest monk, eluding his grasp and giggling. I could not take my eyes off her. The eyes were brown, but as intense as Elena’s could be. The nose would some day be slender, the lips full.

  I finally realized my pain wasn’t because Elena had turned to a man. What flamed through me was pure jealously, as green as it gets. She loved someone else. She might still love someone else. What did I expect after eight years? Of course she would move on. She knew I never intended to return. Even as I reasoned this out, a tiny voice tucked into the recesses of my neocortex screamed, “But she’s mine, she loves me.”