The Crown of Valencia Read online

“No, Elena isn’t here, honey. Besides, she’s far too violent a woman for you, Kate. Come, drink this. Swallow this pill. There. That’s good.”

  *

  Talking, talking. The woman always talked. So hot. I was melting. Cold air froze to my skin. I was frozen in Spain. Frozen in time. Centuries from now they would uncover me and study me. Why was she all alone? they would ask. My son disappeared, I said. Elena made a baby.

  *

  “Kate, I’ve never stopped loving you, but this is bigger than both of us. Imagine—to change the world. To change history. Doesn’t it just make you wet thinking about it?”

  I was a desert. My son was gone. Where was my oasis? My oasis left on a horse. My oasis hated me. She used to love me. “Water.”

  “Good girl, drink this. I’ve had it boiled to be safe. Swallow this pill. You’re getting better, honey. It’s the miracle of antibiotics. You’re going to make it.”

  *

  My world was patches of blurred colors, as if some mad impressionist had used my eyeballs as a canvas. A patch of brown covered me. A smear of green walked past me. A column of white stood still. Why were my eyelids so heavy? When I practiced blinking, the white column slowly became a Moor in a white robe and turban standing by a doorway, arms folded, face fierce.

  When the green blur bent over me, I blinked furiously, squinting until Anna’s face came into focus. “Welcome back,” she said softly.

  I couldn’t move my lips, so she dabbed them with a damp cloth. I couldn’t move anything. Other than a dull ache in my left shoulder, my whole body felt swollen and heavy, as if the earth’s gravity had doubled. “What...happened?”

  Anna clucked, such a loud, harsh sound. “Rafael shot you in the shoulder. I told him only to point the gun at you. I really didn’t want you to get hurt. He’s such a big fool.”

  With intense concentration, I managed to raise my right hand and clasp Anna’s shoulder. Despite her protests, I pulled myself up until our noses nearly touched. “Not as big a fool,” I rasped, “as the absolute moron who gave him the gun.” The room spun around me, and I faded into my dreams.

  *

  “Lock those prisoners up in the holding hut. I don’t want her to wake up and see them here. Not yet.”

  “I didn’t mean to harm her.”

  “Go. She’ll be fine, no thanks to you.”

  “I hate the thing that hurt her. I threw it far into the woods. Caquito wanted it, but I said that devil stick is for cowards, not soldiers.”

  *

  Warm soft fur rubbing against my neck. Purring into my ear. Smell of soil and wet animal and dead mice. Something kneading, kneading my thigh, my belly, my shoulder. Oh! Shooting pain! “Cassandra, no! Leave her alone.”

  *

  Sun woke me, creeping down my pillow and onto my face. When I stirred, a dark Moorish woman leapt to her feet and left the room. The white column still guarded the door, but Anna soon stood by my side. “Welcome to Valencia, the crown jewel of Moorish Spain.”

  I struggled to sit up, wincing as I used my shoulder, and Anna plumped the pillows up behind me. “How bad is it?” I asked. Valencia. Inside the walls. Without Arturo. Without Rodrigo.

  She smiled brightly, as if being shot in the eleventh century was commonplace. “As gunshot wounds go, I’d say it’s very good. The bullet passed all the way through you. You lost a lot of blood, of course, but you’re recovering nicely.”

  “I feel like I’ve been drugged.”

  Laughing, she nodded toward a huge carafe of wine. “I’ve been keeping you full of wine and sleeping pills so you’d stay quiet and heal.”

  I stared at the tray of food. “Where did you get food? The siege has cut the city off.”

  She almost giggled. “One of the joys of knowing the future is you can prepare for it. I have stored enough food in this palace to feed al-Rashid and all our guards and servants for months.”

  “Anna?”

  She leaned closer, blond hair brushing the shoulders of some elaborate lace number, far too classy for nursing duties. “Yes?”

  “A gun. Are you insane? What else did you bring back?” My throat felt dry and scratchy from disuse.

  “Oh, Kate, let’s don’t argue about that now. You need to get stronger.”

  Suddenly too sleepy to be coherent, I slid lower onto the bed and slept.

  *

  A piece of bread was my first solid food after bowls of broth fed to me while I was semi-conscious. “Anna, you’ve brought back Viagra. You’ve brought back a gun. I suspect you’ve brought back drugs, which I know you’re using on Rodrigo. You are being totally irresponsible.”

  She patted my knee affectionately. “Since I’m trying to do no less than change the entire course of history, you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel too contrite over a little gun.” She sighed happily. “When I first knew you’d returned, I was furious. But then I realized what it meant. You came back because I am successful. I’m changing Spain’s history, and you can’t stand that.” She stroked the thick fur of an orange tabby cat curled up on her lap. Another stalked across the bed, arching its back and leaping onto the wide windowsill.

  “I will stop you.” My head hurt and my arm was numb.

  “Oh, cut the bravado, Kate. You’re in no condition to stop a flea. You’ll stay right here with me until, say, June 16th or so, the day after Rodrigo was to take Valencia.”

  I rubbed my temples, finally starting to notice more of my surroundings. “Where am I?”

  “In al-Rashid’s palace.”

  “Carlos. He set me up. He’s been feeding drugs to Rodrigo, hasn’t he?”

  She snorted softly. “Can you blame him for joining me? You know how the Christians treated the Jews. With me, with the new history, he has the chance to erase all that. We have worked together from the start.”

  My stomach twisted as if she’d punched me. How much more could I take? And where the hell was my son?

  I shifted, wincing at the sudden flare of pain in my shoulder. “How long have I been here?”

  Anna pursed her lips, tipped her small head. “Rafael brought you to me immediately. I’ve kept you pretty much unconscious for...” She ticked off the fingers. “Five days.”

  “Five?” I squeaked. I closed my eyes and calculated the date. June 9. Instead of making a difference, all I’d done for the last five days was make a dent in this mattress. Six days left. And I lay here weak as a sick lamb with a hole in my shoulder. “Help me up. I want to walk around.”

  “No, it’s too soon. Oh!” I threw my good arm around her neck so she had no choice but to help me. My stomach flipped as I stood, and my knees wobbled, but I didn’t pass out. I had to get better, and quickly.

  *

  That afternoon I was walking with the servant’s help, whose name she shyly told me was Nabila as she shooed cats out of the way. “She loves animals,” Nabila said apologetically, and I could smell cat urine coming from one corner of the room. Anna had never really been an animal person before, preferring the company of friends and students. When we passed the window, I could see much of a large square, bordered by two-story buildings, the mosque at one end. The Muslim call to prayer rang out five times a day, and the mountains rose far to the west like stern, blue-green guards.

  I walked some every hour and asked for food just as often to help build back my strength. Nabila answered my questions but was too meek to offer much more. At one point I had her lift the loose bandage, and I inspected the small wound, now crusted with a scab. Thank god it had entered below my collarbone, but judging from the sharp pain when I moved the wrong way, my ribs must be bruised as well. Twice we both grimaced as one of Anna’s cats walked into the room with a dead mouse and dropped it at the guard’s feet. He kicked both cat and mouse out of the room.

  While I walked, I forced myself to review the mess I called my life. Professor Kalleberg’s voice lit up my head, and I wondered briefly how he fared, sitting in that abandoned cave waiting for a shift in history. Ar
turo was still missing. Carlos had betrayed me. Elena’s true gender was revealed, and she hated me for it. Fadri hated me. I got shot. The al-Saffah leader Nugaymath had my dagger. Now that she’d captured me, Anna had Arturo’s dagger as well. I had no weapon. And other than knifing Rodrigo in the ass and saving Elena, I had done nothing. I sighed. Professor Kalleberg should have come instead.

  I leaned out the window, catching the cool breeze, and realized with a start that I was only on the second floor. Surely even I could escape from the second floor. The square, filled with trees and a small fountain, was lined with stone buildings with thick tile roofs. A Moor sat on a bench outside the building opposite me, only entering the small, windowless building now and then with a tray of food and a brown clay jug. Apparently I wasn’t the only prisoner.

  “Isn’t the mosque stunning in this light?”

  I turned slowly, wiping all thought of escape from my face. “It is. Do you spend much time there?” Anna nodded for the guard to step outside.

  “I pray privately.”

  “Because Islam forbids women to pray in mosques.”

  She fingered one of her massive gold rings. “No, it doesn’t. You just don’t understand Islam, Kate. You don’t understand what the Moors can do for women.”

  I snorted, dropping back onto my bed, partly to convince Anna I was still weak, and partly because I was still weak. “Enlighten me then.”

  Green eyes sparkled as she sat beside me. “Muhammad loved and respected women. He adored Khadija, his only wife for over twenty years. Many of Allah’s revelations to Muhammad improved women’s lives.” For a second, time shifted, and we were back in our kitchen, and she’d just come home with news of a new research grant or a stimulating class discussion. “Modern Islam oppresses women because something went wrong along the way. The revelations meant to protect Muhammad’s wives were misinterpreted, misapplied to all women. But in Muhammad’s time women were involved in life. When Nusaybah and her husband joined the battle of Uhud, she saved Muhammad’s life, refusing to leave his side even after the men fled. Muhammad’s daughter Fatima led a victorious political struggle after his death.”

  I could feel my eyes beginning to droop, the predicable effect of Anna’s lectures. She burrowed through a basket she’d brought. “While modern Islam has problems, the Moors got it right. The veil isn’t strictly enforced. Women share in scientific advances. Girls are educated just as completely as boys.” She pulled out a sheaf of thin parchment. “Here. I want you to read this. It’s all in here.”

  I stared at the stack now on my lap. “You’ve written a thesis on this?”

  Face flushed, Anna clasped her hands together, almost as if she sought my approval. “This is such a relief to talk about this with someone besides Carlos. When I learned about Mirabueno and realized I had a window back to the eleventh century, everything became clear, as if I, too, had received a revelation from Allah.” I winced. “If I could increase the power and stature of the Moors, I could both increase Spain’s importance in the world and help spread a more tolerant form of Islam.”

  I picked up the top sheet: “Thoughts on the Role of Women in a More Tolerant Islam.”

  “Please read it.”

  I didn’t look at the papers in my hand. “Anna, why did you expose Luis?”

  “Ahh, I wondered when you’d ask that. I’m very sorry I had to hurt her that way.”

  “How long had you known?”

  “The more time I spent with her as she accompanied Rodrigo to meetings with Alfonso, the more I suspected it. She never joined the men in a communal pee, and I couldn’t imagine you with a man.”

  “How did you know for sure?”

  “Not until she dropped her pants. I took a risk.”

  Anna’s games made me furious. “Why expose her at all? She was no threat to you.”

  Anna shrugged. “The more isolated Rodrigo is, the better.”

  I rubbed my temples. She had thought of everything.

  “Kate, read this. It will take your mind off Arturo and Luis.”

  “And when I’m done?”

  “Then I want to talk. Read this and you’ll see why we need to work together, not against each other. I want you to join me. We made a great team once. We can do it again.” She slid one warm hand over mine. “Think about it.”

  *

  I read every page. She profiled modern Muslim societies. Muslim women fight as soldiers in the United Arab Emirates. Iran votes women into Parliament and sends them abroad as diplomats. Turkey had a woman prime minister. In these countries women found valuable role models to follow from early Islam. Anna wanted to venerate these women—Khadija, Nusaybah, the prophet’s daughters—and the Moors of Spain were the best suited for this.

  I stopped to rub my eyes. As a feminist, I struggled with the thought that what Anna proposed actually made sense. Then I remembered. She’d have to manipulate history, impact billions of lives over the centuries, causing whole chunks of history, of culture, of people to cease to exist. Only a very sick person would believe she had the right, the ability, the wisdom, to alter the world.

  I walked and walked, stretched my arm and shoulder, and pondered, just as Anna had asked me to. I thought of all the reasons Anna was crazy. I thought of all the reasons I had to find Arturo and get him home. I even thought of the one reason a small part of me was desperate to stay in this century.

  Mid-list I stopped, really noticing for the first time that the bed had sheets, odd for this time period, but I suppose Anna had ordered them made. The bed, in fact, had two sheets, and Nabila had piled used sheets, likely drenched with my fever sweats, in the nearby corner. I shot a glance at the guard. Would it be that easy? Might something in this doomed operation go right? I looked out the window, gauging. Three sheets, maybe four, should do it. My spirits chugged to life, fueled by hope. Lose the guard, lose the servant, and I, too, could be gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  That evening I watched for an opportunity but none came. While Nabila slept soundly on a grass mat along the wall, the guard stayed alert and wary, damn him, until he was relieved. I could hear two more guards talking down the hall, so Anna was clearly taking no chances. I had subdued Rafael and Caquito with Tae Kwon Do because they weren’t expecting anything, but my sentry watched my every move with dark, suspicious eyes. Two swords hung from the leather belt wrapped around his robes. Before I could reason through my options, and exhausted by my day of recovery, sleep took me.

  Anna returned the next morning after I’d finished my three eggs and a thick slice of bread smeared with sweet almond butter. She brought me a stunning white rose just beginning to open, the petals soft as the inside of Elena’s thighs. I bent my head to the rose, inhaling deeply, eyes closed, remembering.

  Anna sat on the bed beside me. “What do you think?”

  I shook my head as I handed her back her thesis. “While you have been writing this, plotting your manipulations of history, you’ve missed so much.”

  “Like?”

  “Like Arturo’s first soccer game, or the day he finally stood up to Brent Jackson, or the Saturday he raided the neighbor’s garden and picked every blossom just for me.”

  Anna dropped her gaze, stroking yet another cat on her lap. Her nails were bitten short, the cuticles red and inflamed. “You’re right. I envy all those years you spent with Arturo, while I’ve spent them basically alone.”

  “You’ve had lovers. You have Carlos.”

  For a frightening second I thought Anna was going to cry. She rubbed her throat as if to dislodge something. “Not the same, Kate. You helped Arturo grow up. You’ve been a mother.”

  Regret? From Anna? I bit back words of sympathy, since she’d made her own choice.

  The muezzin’s thin call to prayer rang out in the square, and Anna sat on the edge of her chair, expectant, anticipating something. She squared her shoulders, then gave me a shy smile. “That’s why I am so grateful I have the chance to make things up to Arturo,
to help shape his journey into adulthood.”

  “What?”

  She rose, motioning me to the window. “Come, I want you to see this. I hope you will share my pride.”

  Men moved toward the mosque, most of them slowly, exhausted with starvation, but a strong breeze billowed out every robe so the men appeared as colorful butterflies among the trees below, almost golden in the early morning light. They gathered around a high bench, on which stood a young Moor dressed in pure white robe and turban shot through with gold and silver thread.

  When the young man raised his jeweled hands and turned in my direction, my lungs ceased to function. My mouth worked frantically but produced no sound. Arturo.

  “Come, all you believers,” Arturo began, his clear voice bringing tears of relief and confusion to my eyes. “As your caliph, Allah has spoken to me, and told me what we must do.”

  “Caliph?” I squeaked as he exhorted the men to remain strong during the siege. Wild-eyed, I whirled on Anna. “Caliph? Al-Rashid? Arturo is al-Rashid?”

  “Calm down, Kate. You’ll have a stroke.” She gazed down at Arturo with such a loving smile a dagger of fear sliced through me. “We’ve been together over a week, and it’s going splendidly.”

  “How? Why?” I sputtered.

  “I needed a teenaged boy. That fool Jehaf murdered my original al-Rashid—”

  “So you murdered his son.”

  “Precisely. My Rashid was a dear boy I’d spent two years training, and while it was a terrible loss so late in the game, I resolved to find myself another Rashid.”

  My nails dug half moons into the soft wooden sill. “But al-Saffah kidnapped Arturo.”

  “And then I offered them five thousand gold pieces. When I put out the word I sought a fourteen-year-old boy, Nugaymath delivered him herself.”

  Arturo, deeply tanned since I’d last seen him twelve days ago, had five guards around him, but he was so small, so vulnerable. “Anna, you stupid bitch! Ibn Jehaf murdered the first Rashid. He’ll try to kill the second as well. You’ve put Arturo in great danger.”