The Crown of Valencia Read online

  After thanking Marta and Juliana once again, I headed for the house to change out of my now-filthy skirt. There I grabbed a pile of clothes and headed for the stream, my very own Maytag. After my bread disaster, I needed a success. Besides, if I didn’t conquer the challenges of living in this century, how could I possibly stay?

  Chapter Two

  Early the next morning I lay in bed, watching Elena sleep. She’d apologized last night for making fun of me and my bread, and we’d found the perfect way to help me forget my baking disaster. Lover, A+.

  I began tracing Elena’s eyebrows, her cheekbones, her jaw, but when I reached her lips I froze at an odd crunching sound coming from behind Elena. Adrenaline flooded my body. Ever since the lovely Moorish princess Walladah had tried to have me killed months ago in the Aljafería harem, I’d been a bit jumpy. A jumpy lesbian was not a pretty sight.

  I looked over my shoulder across the room. Our door stood partially open. Crap—I’d forgotten to latch it last night. Holding my breath, I slowly sat up and peered over Elena’s shoulder.

  “Oh!” I shrieked.

  “Wha—” Elena shot up, cursed the open door, and yanked the blanket up over her naked chest. A white ewe with charcoal freckles stood beside the bed, mouth full of the tulips and crocuses I’d picked yesterday and put in a crockery vase. Two speckled lambs, eyes black and huge, nibbled at the stems still in their mother’s mouth.

  “Sheep. Elena, there are three sheep in our room.”

  Groaning, Elena dropped back onto her pillow. “Is that all?”

  I stared at the ewe. “Shoo. Go away. Bad sheep.” Gold eyes with horizontal pupils stared back, then small, brown pellets dropped from her backside and rolled across the floor.

  I yelped and leapt from the bed, scattering the startled sheep. “That’s it. Elena, get up. These blasted sheep are using our room as a toilet.” I threw on my long skirt and tunic, yanked on my soft leather boots, then tried to herd the ewe out the door. She ran around the room, lambs glued to her hips like a set of training wheels. She overturned the room’s one chair, and a lamb nearly upset the chamber pot.

  Elena lay in bed, dissolved in laughter, even when Destructo-Ewe and her evil offspring leapt onto and over the bed. “Help me,” I shrieked. “These sheep are so stupid.”

  “Close the door first,” Elena said, wiping her eyes. When I did, she rose, lithe and smooth and naked. As I watched, Elena bound her small perfect breasts with a fresh white linen strip, then dressed in leggings, long green shirt and a leather tunic. “Sheep aren’t stupid,” she said in her husky voice. “Why should a sheep understand the human concept of ‘door?’” I tried to stay stern, but her broad grin broke me down, and we exchanged that look new lovers give each other, the one full of amazement and delight they could be together every day.

  “Now open the door and stand off to the side.” Gently clucking, Elena herded the now-frantic sheep along the wall until they had to choose between me or the door. They chose the door, hard hooves slipping on the flagstone as they fled down the hallway. Shepherdess, D.

  Before we followed, Elena pulled me to her. “Good morning, my pearl.” Our deep kiss warmed me like strong alcohol, a welcome warmth since we lived in a house with nothing but wooden shutters over the windows. While I’d been happy for months to have been Elena’s pearl, Luis Navarro’s wife, I wondered if, at some point, it would not be enough. One of these days I’d get the hang of bread, and then what would I do with my time?

  As Elena and I herded the sheep toward the back door, the ewe bleated. She and her lambs fled the wide open door, then leaping and kicking with relief, they dashed down the slope and joined the flock Juan tended. I waved at the young shepherd, who bobbed his dark head respectfully. “You know sheep,” I said to Elena. “Maybe you should be a shepherd instead of a soldier.”

  She folded her arms and squared her stance, always a bad sign. “Why would I want to stop being a soldier?”

  We’d had this identical conversation five times already, so I didn’t answer. Mercenary soldiers in this century didn’t grow old. They fought until one day their shield or their sword or their strength or their luck failed them. The thought of losing Elena forced the oxygen from my lungs.

  “You are holding your breath again.”

  “Am not.”

  “You are.” Elena kissed my ear and slipped an arm around me, our disagreement already dried into dust by the early morning sun. We turned back toward our home. Because it was the largest residence and sat on the highest hill, its inhabitants—that would be us—were Don and Doña to the villagers clustered nearby. I loved the worn cedar siding, which turned a warm copper after a hard rain, streaks of silver flashing through the wood grain when the sun finally came out. Two kids chased a third out the front door. We’d made it clear the ‘castle’ was open to all, so it had become a community center of sorts. As long as Elena and I could bar our bedroom door at night, we had all the privacy we needed.

  Inside, someone had left four loaves of fresh bread on the table. “Food!” Elena cried and fell upon the nearest loaf, gnawing on the golden crust.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I scolded, hands on my hips. “You get plenty to eat.” I approached the cold hearth to start a fire.

  Elena wiped the crumbs off her face and reached for me. “You are right. I am still full from last night.” Right in the middle of one of those kisses that turned my kneecaps to melted honey, a grinning soldier burst into the room. I pulled away. Alvar Fáñez.

  “I see I’m just in time,” he cried. “I’ll take the next kiss.” With his black eye patch and ready grin, the soldier striding across the room was a happy-go-lucky pirate, the kind who would steal your money, then steal a kiss, or more. He was also the man history claimed to be Rodrigo Díaz’s first lieutenant, not Luis Navarro, a fact I’d remembered reading in one of Anna’s history books. Not a day went by that I didn’t look into Elena’s eyes and feel the cold hand of history brush through me. Something was going to happen to Elena, and I had no idea what.

  Alvar and Elena clasped arms as she threatened him with castration if he came near me, then he smoothly moved his sword aside, knelt on the dusty floor, and pressed his lips against my hand. “Oh, Kate. Your beauty outshines the sun, the moon, and the jewels of a thousand kings.”

  I shook my head and leaned over the ridiculous knight. Alvar Fáñez was a man I wanted to dislike but just couldn’t. “And where did you hear that pile of bull manure?” I asked.

  Alvar winked his good eye, which was the color of green glass pounded soft by the ocean, and leapt to his feet. “I heard a minstrel sing it last week. I was sure it would charm you right into my arms.” He chuckled as Elena cuffed him across the back of the head. Hard to believe Alvar had ever considered killing Elena. He, Nuño, Gudesto, and Elena had been the last of a band of fanatical Moor-haters called the Caballeros de Valvanera. Gudesto had convinced Alvar to kill Elena, which he’d almost done on the battlefield, but at the last minute, Alvar realized which friend deserved his loyalty, and turned his sword aside. Somehow Elena and Alvar recovered their trust in each other. I’m not sure I could have been so generous.

  “Enough, children. Sit down and I’ll make some eggs.” I reached for a bowl.

  “Are you sure?” Elena said. “I saw Marta down by her garden. She could make—” Elena’s brows pulled together.

  “Relax.” While I wasn’t Martha Stewart of the eleventh century, I could handle an easy breakfast. Cooking Eggs, A.

  Alvar dropped down onto the bench and leaned against the wall. “I bring news from Burgos. Rodrigo says it is time to muster the army again and wants us all back within the week. King Alfonso plans to take Cordoba from the Almoravides and will pay us handsomely to accompany him.”

  Elena whooped and banged her fist against the table, rattling the plates I set out. “Finally.” She didn’t look at me, but her flushed face told me she’d been chafing under the winter’s inactivity. “I am not cut out to
be a land baron.” It unnerved me to see her brighten at a fight. While I cooked, trying not to think about Elena being sliced to ribbons in battle, the two old friends caught up.

  Later, Alvar bent over his plate, smacking appreciatively. “Before we take Cordoba, Alfonso considers moving his court to Toledo to better position himself. The Queen disagrees, but Alfonso’s mistress suggested it. They say that woman keeps the king hard all night.” Alvar winked at Elena. “We should be so lucky, eh?” I bit off a smile as Elena nearly choked on her bread. Good, served her right.

  “Some say the woman is a seer,” Alvar continued. “They say Paloma de Palma uses pagan signs and cards to foretell the future.”

  “Paloma de Palma?” I squeaked. “That’s her name?” I’d heard that name last fall when negotiating with King Alfonso for Luis’s release, noticing it matched the pen name Anna had planned to use if she ever wrote a lesbian romance novel. A woman who talked as strangely as I did, who appeared to know the future, and used Anna’s beloved pen name?

  Alvar nodded. “Yes. Alfonso does not make a move now without consulting her.”

  Elena leaned back in her chair, the wooden legs protesting. “King Alfonso is a man of faith. How could he put so much store in astrology?” I turned my back so Elena couldn’t see my face. Anna was an expert in medieval Spanish history and would know the outcome of every battle King Alfonso had ever fought. As they finished eating, I struggled for calm. No, it couldn’t be her.

  After a few minutes, Alvar pushed away from the table and belched. Elena did the same, sneaking a guilty glance at me through those thick lashes. Table manners had yet to be invented, and Elena resisted my gentle suggestion to at least close her mouth.

  “How long will the campaign be?” Elena asked. “Does Rodrigo consider a siege? I should be in Burgos planning this. Rodrigo cannot make a plan to save his life. And what about Valencia?”

  Alvar snorted. “At this point who knows? Whoever controls the crown of Valencia controls a great jewel. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day Rodrigo himself went after Valencia.”

  I nearly dropped the precious pottery plate I was drying because I remembered enough history to know Rodrigo would do just that. He would take Valencia for himself, not for Alfonso, and when he did, history would twist events around and credit him with beginning the reconquest of Spain, the four-hundred year process of driving the educated, skilled, and civilized Moors from the peninsula. After the Moors invaded the peninsula in 711, the Moors had shaped Spain—its art, its language, its culture. Yet after 1492 Spain would kill or drive out both the Moors and the Jews, the best minds of their country. Anna had convinced herself this had been Spain’s downfall, and that the Moors should have remained in Spain and ruled the entire country. So if Anna had really come back to the eleventh century, it made more sense that she’d be living with the Moors, not in Christian Spain with King Alfonso. I took a deep breath, trying to relax the knot forming in my belly. Paloma de Palma just could not be Anna.

  “Don Luis.” A stocky man from the village knocked on the doorframe. “Many pardons for the intrusion, but Menendez and Barela fight again. They are outside the mill and mean to kill each other.”

  Elena groaned, rose, strapped on her sword belt, and made sure her dagger rested in its thigh scabbard. She hadn’t used either since we’d arrived at Duañez because El Picador’s reputation—good with a sword but devastating with a dagger—had preceded us. “Alvar, can you be trusted with my wife for a short time?”

  “Of course not.”

  Shaking her head, Elena followed the villager from the room. I turned toward Alvar, licking my dry lips. “This Paloma de Palma, have you seen her?”

  “No, but she must be beautiful to lure King Alfonso from Queen Constance’s bed.” He broke off a hunk of bread and spread it with honey. “They say she’s charming and can talk people into doing her bidding, whatever that might be.” My jaw clenched. Alvar had just described my ex-lover Anna.

  I lurched to my feet, fussing with the folds of my skirts so Alvar would not see my hands, which trembled not in fear, but in fury, then excused myself. If, by some horrible twist of fate, Paloma were Anna, that meant she brought a six-year-old boy back over nine hundred and twenty years to a time when a simple scratch could develop into a fatal infection.

  My footsteps echoed against the stone walls as I ran down the hall and into our room. With stiff fingers I unzipped my leather fanny pack, the only thing I’d had with me the day I accidentally fell back in time. I yanked everything out: the Lion King keychain, the purple flashlight, the empty bubble pack of Benadryl. I fingered the photo of Arturo, praying he was happy in Chicago, that he loved my dog Max, that he liked his new home.

  I unfolded the half-finished family drawing he’d given Anna and me the day we’d met him in the orphanage. Anna, Max, and Arturo were all complete and connected hand-to-hand-to-paw. My figure lacked a head, foreshadowing that I wouldn’t be part of their family.

  I didn’t need to open the last item because I knew the yellow note by heart. The morning before I’d visited the cave and been flung back in time, Anna and I had finally connected after months of distance. I found the note after I’d showered. Dear Kate, Have gone downstairs for breakfast. Join me when you’re up. Love, Paloma de Palma. I closed my eyes. Of all that I’d worried about this last winter, not once had I considered the possibility that Anna might have figured out the secret of the Mirabueno Cave and come looking for me.

  *

  When I woke up the next morning, in the hazy blue between night and dawn, Elena lay on her side, her blue eyes black in the dark. This time her finger did the tracing as she slid down my nose, my jawline, across my lips. “I still cannot believe we found each other.”

  I nibbled her finger and was rewarded with a melting kiss that sent me throbbing. “I want to go to Burgos with you.”

  She raised up on one elbow, teeth white as she laughed. “You would follow the army as a camp woman? Holy Bullocks. I guess I do not know you as well as I thought.” An army on the march had a dozen or more wagons trailing behind it filled with women—for cooking, laundry, tending wounds, and for pleasure.

  “No.” I pulled her down into my arms, praying she didn’t hear how fast my heart beat. “Just to Burgos. I need to deliver the painting to Alfonso.” As part of my bargaining with Alfonso for information on Elena’s whereabouts last fall, the king had requested a large painting of himself victorious over the Moors.

  Elena shifted in my arms. “You said last week you still had work to do on it.”

  “Minor touch-ups. I can finish them tomorrow. This is my best opportunity to get the painting to him.”

  Elena rolled over on her back, staring at the heavy beamed ceiling, pulling away almost more than if she’d physically left the room. “Does this have anything to do with...with that de Palma woman?” I said nothing. “I saw your face as we talked of her.”

  I swallowed. I trusted Elena with my life—that wasn’t a problem. But I’d already put her through so much last fall—running away, insisting on returning to my century, then changing my mind. She’d been strapped into the seat right next to me on the rollercoaster of my life, and I couldn’t bear to drag her on another ride unless I absolutely had to. Besides, speaking my fears would make them real. No use both of us feeling unbalanced. “I need to go to Burgos. You’re going there. Doesn’t it make sense to go together? Or would you rather I travel alone, unarmed and vulnerable?”

  That brought the reluctant smile I knew it would. “I would hardly call you vulnerable,” she said as I snuggled into her. She melted against me, saying nothing more.

  Questions rattled through me, but I pushed them away, deciding to pull a Scarlett O’Hara and think about that tomorrow. To avoid exploding, all I could do was take this one step at a time.

  Chapter Three

  Ex-girlfriends. You couldn’t live with them and you couldn’t get away from them, not even if you traveled back in time over nine hundred
and twenty years. Somehow, some way, they manage to wreck your new relationship and totally screw with your head.

  At least that’s what I feared as I bounced along on the rock-hard seat of that damned wagon, sitting beside old José, whose crippled leg prevented him from farming, but allowed him to drive the wagon. Men rode on horseback around us, kicking up enough dust to coat my hair, face, and the inside of my lungs. We were heading for Burgos, and I could barely sit still.

  José chattered endlessly. He wore his greasy, thin hair slicked back behind enormous ears, and the rough topography of his face and neck were the likely result of too much sun and too many brawls. “I’m pleased as a saint’s mama to be riding wi’ you, Señora. We got us two whole days to chat, we do.” José clicked loudly to the two brown mules pulling the wagon. “My woman says not to talk your ear off, she did. But I’m thinking we’ll have a grand time, you and me.”

  I smiled weakly. Up ahead and flanked by her men Enzo and Fadri, Elena rode the sleek Matamoros. During the long winter I’d come to appreciate Enzo’s gruff concern, Fadri’s enthusiasm, and their total devotion to Luis Navarro.

  Behind us came three hundred of Elena’s men, some on horseback, others driving wagons of supplies, others on foot. The procession filled the warm day with male voices raised in bawdy song, creaking wagon wheels, the almost syncopated rhythm of hundreds of horses, and the occasional high sparkle of women laughing in the wagons. Alvar was driving one of the wagons, flirting outrageously.

  Bored, I twisted around on the hard bench to make sure the painting wasn’t shifting during the rough ride. The busy, narrow road had rutted badly in the spring rains, but José took no notice, reins loose in palms so callused I thought at first he wore gloves. A lanky man passed us on horseback, nodding politely.

  José clucked under his breath. “Beats his wife, that one does. My cousin from Ona says he has more ale in his head than good sense. Oh, look-ee there. Paco! How is the family?” José leaned toward me. “Pays more attention to his sheep than he does his wife, that one. Now I’m not one to criticize, but it ain’t his wife’s fault she was born with no toes. Saints above, it is true. Saw the stumps myself. Argghh—that wagon ahead? Poor family’s lost three children this winter. My cousin from Calahora says they brung it on themselves, they did. Why, they never attend mass. Can you believe it? Satan’s minions, that family. I can remember...”