The Crown of Valencia Read online

  Her green eyes narrowed in agreement. “Yes, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.”

  “We?”

  Anna reached for my hand but I jerked it away. “Please don’t be upset, honey. At first, Arturo resisted my plan and wanted nothing to do with me. But I gave him a white stallion and servants to wait on him. He has more money at his disposal than he could ever spend. He eats well, and drinks wine, in private of course. A caliph must appear to be devout to his followers.”

  Anna’s words clanged in my head like a school fire drill, the kind that go off when you’re standing right beneath them. Stallion. Servants. Money. Wine. Oh, my god. What had she done to my son?

  “The secret to managing a teenager is giving him what he thinks he needs,” Anna said, and my hands twitched to wrap themselves around her neck and squeeze her until she turned the color of ice. “The money helped, but I think it was getting his own harem that finally convinced him that life as al-Rashid was a great idea.”

  Stallion. Servants. Sex.

  “You’ve brainwashed him.”

  “No, nothing that dramatic. Just given him the life he’s always dreamed of.” She leaned against the wall, arms folded. “I’m sure he still cares for you, though, since he asks about you often.”

  The crowd cheered wildly at the end of Arturo’s speech, and he raised two triumphant fists, beaming with an excitement that burned my throat. When the guards helped him off the bench, everyone filed into the mosque behind him.

  After Elena’s refusal to help me and her harsh words before fleeing, I didn’t think my life could sink any lower, but here I was, going down, down, down. I blinked furiously. I would not give Anna the satisfaction of seeing me break down. But, oh, Arturo. I trembled with horror, not just because Arturo had been swayed to work against Rodrigo, but at a deeper loss. “Leave me,” I croaked.

  Anna’s face glowed with such sympathy I nearly punched her. “I need your answer. You could join us. You could be his parent alongside me.”

  She was offering, out of her generous spirit, to let me parent my own child? Blissful fury buried the pain burning inside me, and I struggled for control as Anna began pacing the wide room.

  “Thanks to what you told Carlos, I know that my plans succeed. This only increases my resolve. You have failed, not something you’re used to, and I understand that makes you bitter. But nothing you’ve done, or tried to do, has changed what must happen.”

  “If you change the timeline, you change your own history. Your ancestors may never be born, so you’ll never exist. You could just pop out of existence. We all could.”

  “Rubbish. Al-Rashid will unite the Moors, conquer all of Spain, and the word of Allah will spread throughout Europe and North America. I’m not afraid of disappearing, and even if I did, my actions are more important than my life.”

  “North America? Europe won’t discover it for another 400 years.”

  She smiled. “Why wait? I know where it is, so there’s no reason to wait until 1492. Only this time we’ll do it right. We won’t enslave or murder or exploit the natives.”

  It was my turn to smile. “You don’t really understand human beings, do you?”

  She waved aside my comment, then paused, skin glistening with a thin sheen of perspiration. “This new history is inevitable, Kate. Join us.”

  I looked up at the slight break in her voice, which revealed her complete loneliness, then I took both her hands in mine. How isolated, how friendless she must have been these last eight years, which suddenly explained all the cats. She may have had affairs, but no one loved her but her pets. Tremors ran through her hands into mine, and when I gazed into that older, but oh-so-familiar face, something tripped in my heart. While I no longer actively loved her, I wondered if, after five years of entwining our lives and our hearts, perhaps a shadow love remained, nesting in a deep crevasse in my soul, a place that would always love her.

  I brought her hands to my lips and kissed them, sighing softly. “You have really thought through all that you’ve done. You’ve approached this with the same devotion and concentration you applied to your teaching, despite how lonely you must be. You’ve even converted to Islam as a symbol of your commitment.” Her breath quickened as her eyes filled with tears. “But to help you destroy what must be?” I suddenly bellowed. “To help you endanger and corrupt my son?” I stood, her hands trapped in my furious grip. “Not in a million fucking years. Do you hear me?” I said through clenched teeth. “Never. Ever. I am going to whip your ass and kick it all the way back to the twenty-first century.”

  She pulled free, her mouth open. “You refuse to join me?”

  “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” I snarled.

  Her face suddenly red, Anna squeezed her eyes shut for a second, shaking her head. “I don’t believe this. You’re too smart to refuse.”

  “Smart has nothing to do with it. I’m right, and you’re just fucking wrong.”

  “You can’t refuse. No one refuses me. I’m too powerful. I have shitloads of money. I even bought Tahir. Don’t fight me.”

  “Tahir works for you?”

  “Of course. I’ve thought of everything, anticipated every obstacle, looked at every angle. Tahir’s a mercenary, just like your precious Luis. Tahir, Carlos, Rafael, the Valencian council, and hundreds others. They’re all with me. Rodrigo’s ancient history. He’s done.”

  “Anna Lee, fuck you.” She hated that word. So did I, but it was the only word that captured my fury.

  “What?”

  “Fuck you, baby. When I’m done, you’re going to be ancient history.”

  Face now as white as the rose she’d given me, Anna grabbed her bangs with both fists. “Oh, god, don’t make me do this. How could you do this to me?” She stormed around the room cussing me and every moment she’d known me, finally returning to her beginning rant. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do what?” I expected there would be consequences to my refusal, but the terror on her face sent a tiny trickle of fear down my neck.

  Anna turned toward me, her face streaked with tears. “I meant what I said earlier. Nothing is more important to me than this, not even you.”

  “So you’re going to lock me up and throw away the key.”

  “No, my only choice is something more permanent.”

  I forced myself to laugh in her face, sounding much braver than I felt. “You don’t want me dead, or you would have let me die from my wound.”

  “Then I still had hope you might see the truth, but that hope was obviously ill-founded. I can’t run the risk of your interference.”

  “So you’re going to kill me.” She couldn’t kill me anymore than I could kill her, but my fear grew.

  “No, I’m not. The mullah of Valencia will do it for me.” She glared at me, hands on her hips. “This morning I will deliver a letter, in Arabic, to the mullah. That letter will denounce Muhammad as a false prophet and question the word of Allah.”

  “Strange thing for a converted Muslim to do,” I said tightly. I remembered Grimaldi’s story of the Christian martyrs in which blasphemy was punished swiftly by beheading.

  “The letter will be signed by Kate Vincent and others. The mullah will not waste any time because he must set an example. You will die tomorrow.”

  My jaw clenched. “Coward. Kill me yourself.”

  She shrugged, exhausted and suddenly distant. “No.” Anna was petite, but now she seemed a wizened old woman, bones too brittle to support her flesh. “You did not choose wisely, my love. I tried to warn you.” She rubbed her eyes. “Christ, now I have to deal with Arturo.”

  “Deal with?”

  Distracted, she ran a hand over her head. “He can’t know about this. I’ll have to lock him in the tower and blame it on Ibn Jehaf or something.” She glared at me. “May Allah forgive me for what I do, but it’s your own fault. You have complicated everything.” She snapped out an order in Arabic to watch me carefully, then left without a backward gl
ance.

  *

  I couldn’t believe she’d go through with it. Maybe when I knelt by the chopping block with a sword suspended over my head, I might concede defeat, but not until that moment.

  Outside, a group of servants constructed a platform, which held nothing but a rectangular chopping block with a shallow notch, clearly cut to hold the victim’s neck steady. As a result, escape never left my mind for a second all day. When Nabila left the room to empty my chamber pot or go for food, I waited until my guard was distracted by a conversation down the hall, then I tied four sheets together and hid them under the bed.

  I tried a coughing fit, but only Nabila came to my rescue. The guard stayed at his post. If I tried to overcome him in the doorway, the other guards would see.

  At one point I even considered just taking my chances and leaping out the window, but too many people milled around the square. I wouldn’t get far, and given my luck, I’d probably break both legs anyway. Now and then someone from the square would point up at my window, so word must have spread—Anna had wasted no time.

  Think, Kate, think. At least the thought of escape kept my mind off Arturo. I absentmindedly stroked the black cat with eyes as blue as Elena’s. At work I’d faced impossible deadlines, shortages, unruly employees, and indifferent bosses. I should be able to get myself out a two-story window. Several blocks away, rising above the Valencian rooftops, was a stone, windowless tower. That would be where Anna was keeping Arturo.

  The sun set, a huge orange globe sliding behind the dark mountains, and torches had been lit in front of a few doorways where men gathered to talk. With dusk I had no choice but to try. I would have to surreptitiously tie the last sheet to the stubby wooden leg of the bed and climb out in full view of Nabila and the guard, hoping to at least get out the window before he could cross the room and grab me.

  Just then Nabila let out a piercing scream as something dark raced across the floor. The cat launched itself from my lap, digging sharp claws in so deeply I yelled as I jumped to my feet. Cat and rat whizzed across the floor and Nabila, crazed with fear, practically climbed me. I yelled and she screamed and somehow, by the time all three guards reached the doorway, Nabila and I stood on the bed, clinging to one another. The cat chased the rat under the bed.

  The men smiled condescending grins, and I found it totally humiliating when one guard waved to the other. “I think you can handle this.” Chuckling, two guards left and returned to their posts.

  “Kill it, kill it,” Nabila moaned, bruising my arms with her desperate grip.

  With a huge, macho sigh, the guard sauntered toward us, then knelt to look under the bed, where I’d stashed my getaway. With my good arm, I reached for the brown clay pitcher on the table beside the bed and grabbed it by the mouth. Nabila had time for only a squeak before I swung the pitcher in a wide arc and smashed it against the guard’s head just as he began to stand.

  Smashing men in the head with pots was becoming a habit.

  Both the guard and the shards of pot ended up on the bed, so I grabbed his soaking robes and lowered him slowly enough there was no thump to attract the other guards.

  Nabila still stood on the bed, hair wild, face pale as the bedsheets. She likely did not know who to fear more—me or the rat. I held my fingers to my lips, then ripped strips from the bed sheet. I gently tied her hands and ankles, then tied a gag around her mouth. Grateful eyes shone back at me because if she were tied up, Nabila might not be punished for my escape.

  I pushed her down on the bed so I could use her weight when I went out the window. She still said nothing, even though the gag, more a Hollywood invention than a practical tool, did nothing to still her vocal cords. Apparently not everyone was as devoted to Señora de Palma as Rafael Mahfouz.

  The cat and rat had disappeared by the time I retrieved my sheets. I quietly shifted the bed closer to the window, tied one end of the sheets to the bed, and threw the rest out the window.

  A few torches burned around the square, but the wall below me was dark. Getting out the window with only one strong arm proved trickier than I’d expected, but I crouched on the sill, sheet gripped in my right arm, then let myself fall. The bed thudded against the wall but that was the last I heard as I half slid, half climbed down, the sheets clutched between knees and thighs. Wincing as I used both arms, I grunted when my feet touched the ground for the first time in days. I was free.

  I untied the last sheet, wrapping it around myself. I knew any Moor I’d meet would see a person wrapped in a bed sheet, but I had to try anything to fade into the background. I ripped off a piece and tied it around my head. Heart pounding, shoulder burning, I skittered alongside the building and approached the street.

  When two male voices approached near the corner ahead, I whirled around, a frantic spinning ghost with no place to hide, finally diving behind a rack of sheepskins curing outside a tanner’s shop next to my former prison. The wooly hides hung over two wooden bars and offered camouflage rather than an actual hiding place.

  “I hate my job,” a deep voice grumbled.

  “Haroun, you always say that before an execution. But look how easy your life goes. You do, what—three or four a year? For this the mullah sees you are well fed. Come. We check that everything is ready tonight, then tomorrow will go well. I envy your life, Haroun.”

  To my horror, the men stopped, leaning against the building only thirty feet from me, and when the skins around me moved silently in the cool breeze, I held my breath. I even tried Arturo’s old trick of squeezing his eyes shut during hide and seek so no one could see him.

  “I know, but the pressure is great. If I do not achieve a clean cut everyone suffers.”

  “No one blames you for last year’s episode, Haroun. The woman moved at the last minute.”

  For Pete’s sake, what morons. Couldn’t they take their therapy session somewhere else?

  A ragged sigh escaped what must have been a large man. “My axe goes dull after one, and tomorrow I have three. I will need at least two sharpened axes.”

  “I will help. Then when the mullah pays you, perhaps a little could trickle down my way.”

  My feet and calves began to fall asleep. Wool tickled my neck and I could smell lanolin and salt and bits of rank flesh.

  “It’s not just that. The woman and two men I execute tomorrow apparently all know each other. And friends tend to fall into each other’s arms and wail and make me feel badly. It feels like I execute a family, not just blasphemers.”

  My bowels cramped, and I tensed every muscle. Oh my god. Who had Anna captured?

  The other man grunted as he straightened. “No use putting it off. Let’s go sharpen axes. Then after tomorrow, what do you think about taking up carpentry? When this siege is over, my cousin in Albarracín could use some help.”

  Now both men stretched and walked past me. “Oh, I’m terrible with wood. I tried a table once and hacked it up something awful.” The woeful executioner and his friend faded into the next block.

  When the men were gone, I ran. Sounds of laughter came from one street, so I ducked into another and stepped into a recessed doorway, so much adrenaline rushing to my head I couldn’t think. The tower. Without being noticed, I made it two more blocks, hiding behind wagons, barrels of water, and a pile of putrefying garbage. Eyes watering from the garbage dump, I crept in the direction of the tower, but when I peered around the next corner, my heart sank. The tower, sized like a small, narrow lighthouse, had only one door, and that door was guarded by thirty soldiers. Shit. A howl of rage came from within the tower, and while I couldn’t make out the words, Arturo was clearly cursing. He was angry. Good. Maybe that would break the spell Anna held over him.

  I slumped onto the dusty street, twisted up in my sheet. The guards would soon discover I was gone. My heart thumped in my chest and my shoulder burned. I needed help. Two people I knew had been caught in Anna’s web and would be executed tomorrow. Whoever Anna had captured, they were probably being held in the
windowless building across from my own prison, the one with the constant guard out front. Could I escape twice from the same sticky web? I had no choice but to try, since I couldn’t rescue Arturo alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Taking a deep breath to gather what little courage I had left, I leapt to my feet and ran, retracing my steps. I passed several groups of men, but in the dark my sheet did the trick. At the corner of the jail, I stopped. A handful of men walked the square, and amazingly, everyone was too involved in conversation to look up and notice the string of bed sheets fluttering softly out a second-story window, now snagged in the nearest tree. I nosed around a pile of junk behind the building in search of something heavy enough, then approached the front.

  “Pssst!” I hissed. The guard, snoring softly against the wall, sat up suddenly. “Pssst! Come here.” I lowered my voice as deeply as I could, poked my head around the corner, and spoke in simple Arabic. “I need help. She won’t stop struggling. I have her clothes off. Come.”

  The randy guard stood, looked to make sure no one watched, then sauntered toward me. When he rounded the corner, I swung the iron bar hard against his temple. He staggered, and I hit again and again until the bloody man crumpled at my feet. After I dragged him down the side street, a quick search yielded no keys, so I yanked his turban off and wrapped it around my own head, wrinkling my nose at the acid sweat, and sauntered as best I could back the way he’d come. At the doorway, which had no lock, I pulled the torch off the wall and pushed the door open.

  Rusty hinges squeaked when I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The torch barely penetrated the oppressive blackness. Stuffy air, heavy with urine and feces, burned my lungs. I lifted the torch, peering through the iron grate before me. “Hello?”