The Crown of Valencia

by Catherine Friend

  It was June 15, 1094. Rodrigo Díaz of Vivar, El Cid, future hero of Spain, the man whose legend would become the repository for all the traits Spaniards most admired, rode into Valencia as its new ruler. He was led to his throne by my son, an eighth grader from Chicago, who would never, ever again consider history a boring subject.

  Nearly faint with pride, I turned. Fadri was helping Carlos sit up, but still pressed a corner of his cape against Carlos’s right arm. “I couldn’t do it,” Carlos said weakly. “At the last minute, when I saw that gun and realized the world would change forever, I could not let it happen.”

  “What the hell weapon did this?” Fadri asked, but I only shook my head.

  “How are you?” I whispered to Carlos. Neither of us spoke of the price the world’s Jews would have to pay for his valor.

  “It’s just my arm,” Carlos said, face drawn with pain. “I’ll heal.” He grimaced as he tried to stand but failed. “Ironically, I feel better than I have in days.”

  I listened closely to my own body and realized every soldier’s shout, every coo of the pigeons on the roofs, every scrape of a horse hoof was clear. The ringing was gone. I flexed my fingers and cried out in relief. No flames of pain. The wave of change racing toward the twenty-first century had smoothed out into nothing.

  Fadri and I helped Carlos stand. “Kate Vincent,” Fadri said. “Why do men always find themselves in pain around you?”

  I tried out a small grin on my tense face, and did not shatter, so I kissed him on his hairy cheek. “You’re a gem, Fadri Colón, and I promise never to hit you again.”

  He shrugged. “Not to worry. The vision you provided before smashing my head was worth it.”

  I shook my head. “You’re terrible. Take Carlos into the city. Find a doctor to help him. Keep the wound clean.” I touched Carlos on the uninjured arm. “Thank you.”

  The man nodded wearily. “I do not enjoy learning such important lessons so late in one’s life. It exhausts me.”

  “What have you learned?”

  A twinkle crept into his eyes. “That I am but a flea on the wide rump of time. I can do naught but ride along.”

  I let myself chuckle despite the body and blood at my feet. People had begun streaming out the city gates.

  Fadri moved Carlos toward the gate, then turned. “You do not come? There is nothing more you can do here.” Valencian men, women, and children now ran freely in the streets to reclaim the city’s suburbs, and many of the soldiers had followed the procession, eager to see the city they had lived outside all these weeks.

  “No, I must stay here, with her. Send a wagon when you have seen to Carlos.” With a nod, Fadri helped Carlos into Valencia.

  I stood alone in the street. As the Valencians fell silent and skirted around me, I stared down at Anna’s face, at her vacant eyes, then closed them.

  Sighing, I wiped my hands on my cape, which had grown weighty from Anna’s blood. I could bring her body back with Arturo and me, and bury her in her own time. But what was her time? Despite her loneliness, despite her misguided plans to change things, she had loved this century. No, I would have Enzo and Fadri help me dig a deep, deep grave here, somewhere in the countryside near Valencia. I would place her there, in her most elaborate gown, then surround her with everything she brought back from the future. The only exception would be the white powder, which Elena would use to slowly reduce Rodrigo’s addiction. I didn’t know how long it would take, but I expected Rodrigo would be his old, obnoxious self within a few weeks. By then I would be sitting in Laura and Deb’s living room, trying to describe a vacation too unreal to believe.

  I moved outside the pool of blood, then sat on the street, pulling my legs up against my chest, resting my forehead on my knees, and thought about time. Time had laid down a train track for history to follow, but when Anna violated that by keeping Rodrigo from Valencia, she forced history to jump its tracks. The further history moved from its destiny, the more our bodies felt the pain of our future breaking apart. History was now back on the right track and would progress as it should. Even if Carlos decided to stay in this century, he now knew enough not to mess with it. All of us would stay out of history’s way, especially Arturo and me. Our job here was done.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  That afternoon Arturo officially resigned as al-Rashid. He did so before a large crowd of Valencians and soldiers gathered outside the mosque, and my sigh of relief nearly stripped nearby trees of their leaves. He was no longer a target for assassination. He told the crowd he was too young to be caliph at this point, and that he wanted to take some time to learn more about life, and to spend more time with his mother, which choked up every woman in the square.

  The next task was one I knew I couldn’t do alone, and I was relieved when Nugaymath and Rabi’a both agreed to help me prepare Anna’s body. The dried blood had turned her clothes to cardboard, so we had to cut them off. After I broke down several times, Nugaymath cursed softly and sent me from the room. “Go pick out a dress for the body. You are no good here.”

  Anna had turned one whole room into her closet, so I picked out the most elegant gown I could find, a green wool trimmed in ermine. Very expensive. Very Anna.

  I pawed through every box, every chest, every pile, searching for twenty-first century items, since every trace of the future must be buried with her. I found three copper chests of gold coins, and decided I could keep them. No use throwing good money away.

  The only chest I couldn’t open was plain, made of heavy wood, locked tight. I returned to Nugaymath and Rabi’a, but stopped outside the hall, hovering out of sight. “Umm, did you find any keys on her?”

  Rabi’a handed me a small chain with keys, and I gave her the green wool dress. “I appreciate your help,” was all I could say. She nodded, then folded the bulky dress over her arm.

  The chest held some coins, a few packs of gum, and Anna’s wallet, with her driver’s license, about $200 in cash, and her VISA card. These must have been her insurance in case she wanted to return to the future.

  I dug deeper and unwrapped a small flat package, gasping when the black velvet fell away from a framed photo of Anna and me, taken years ago on our trip to the Grand Canyon. Tucked into the corner of the frame was the photo of five-year old Arturo I’d lost eight years ago. She must have taken it from me, knowing I wouldn’t need it, since I’d have the real thing.

  I searched the rest of her quarters, and other than some history books and empty prescription bottles, I found nothing more. Heavy with a sadness I couldn’t shake, I locked everything up in the chest.

  *

  The next day it took Enzo, Fadri, Arturo, and me over three hours to dig the grave. I chose a site up in the foothills, hoping the slopes wouldn’t be developed for centuries, at least until time had reduced the coffin and its contents to dust.

  “Deeper?” Enzo asked from the hole, his dusty head even with the ground.

  “Deeper.” Good thing Fadri had thought to throw a ladder onto the wagon.

  I insisted on taking my turn and found the cool, crumbling soil more comforting than I’d expected. Finally, the four of us used two ropes to lower the coffin. I had shed all my tears the day before and felt nothing but an unbearable thickness in my limbs, as if my bones had calcified. Arturo and I each tossed down a handful of wildflowers we’d picked on the way.

  No one spoke as Enzo took up the shovel, but I jumped when the clods of dirt knocked hollow against the coffin. Anna loved Spain. Now she would be here forever.

  “Mom?” Arturo asked as we rode back to Valencia. “Are you all right?”

  The sun was setting behind us, flaming the hills ahead of us as orange as a monarch butterfly’s wing. “No, but I will be.”

  *

  The day after we buried Anna, I sat alone in my room, wallowing in the knowledge I’d killed her. Someone knocked on my door. I jumped, and my heart began its frantic drumbeat.

  But it was Grimaldi, pale forehead creased with
concern, so I waved him in and he lowered himself onto the opposite bench. “How are you?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Tired. Relieved. Horrified.”

  He nodded. “You accomplished your goal, Kate.”

  “I don’t know for sure, so I must ride to the Mirabueno cave to see if Professor Kalleberg has sent back a note telling me what happened. I should have gone already, but with Anna’s burial…”

  “Understandable. Still, you should be proud of what you’ve done.”

  No, pride didn’t describe the hollow ache in my chest, the dull emptiness that I couldn’t banish. I stared at Grimaldi’s cloak, his bags. “You’re leaving.”

  He laced his long bony fingers together. “I miss my family.” He met my eyes. “Kate, I’m sorry I couldn’t help more, but—”

  “Grimaldi,” I interrupted. “You saved my life. If you hadn’t traveled to Valencia, Elena never would have known to rescue me.” He hesitated. “What else is bothering you?”

  “The future. What happens now, Kate? I’m a Christian converted to Islam. My wife and children are Moor. How do I keep them safe?”

  I patted his knee. “The good news is the Moors’ fall is fairly gradual over the next seventy-five years or so. King Alfonso will eventually take Zaragoza, but I think he allows the Moors some degree of religious freedom.”

  “You once said the last Moorish city to fall will be Granada.”

  “In 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabel kick out Boabdil.”

  “Maybe we’ll move to Granada,” he said. “That will buy my family a few years.”

  “Wherever you go, Grimaldi, keep a low profile.”

  He smiled, rose, and pulled me into a bear hug. “Always, my dear Kate. Always. And if you ever decide to return to this century again...” He leaned close to my ear. “Bring more M&Ms.”

  *

  I finally tracked down Nuño, and he agreed to take me to Mirabueno the next day. I took yet another bath at the palace, torn between worry and hope that I’d run into Elena. But she never appeared and seemed to be going out of her way to avoid me. I knew she was busy because Ibn Jehaf had come out of hiding after al-Rashid “resigned,” and everyone was working to put together a city government and defense that made sense.

  My room looked out over a section of the wall, and now and then I saw Elena and Nuño walking there together, heads bent in deep conversation, shoulders bumping companionably. I also witnessed the amazing sight of the kind-hearted warrior Nuño and the fierce Nugaymath walking together occasionally, which brought a wry smile to my lips. How did he handle her constant insults of men? And why was she still here? I thought she’d be back out terrorizing the countryside by now, but once when I saw them talking, their heads bent close together, I suspected Nugaymath would not be leaving Valencia without Nuño.

  I saw little of Arturo, since Rodrigo wanted him there during the discussions. Ibn Jehaf was more comfortable when he saw how little al-Rashid cared about the proceedings. When the now-retired al-Rashid wasn’t with Rodrigo, Elena, and the others, he spent all his time with Rabi’a. In a few days I would have to burst his romantic bubble. It was time we returned to our own century.

  I sat on the narrow iron balcony outside my room, unable to believe it had only been four days since I’d killed Anna. Call to prayer ended, and the clear ringing song seemed to hang in the air, a sound you could feel more than hear. I watched a Christian soldier and a young woman hurry along the wall’s walkway toward the nearest guard tower. Not another one. It’d taken me a few days to catch on, but couples repeatedly disappeared into the tower, the man hanging his sword belt on a hook near the narrow wooden door. When a couple approached the tower with a sword belt already there, they’d turn around and seek another tower. Hotel Valencia, high on the thick Roman walls.

  I watched the traffic passing below. Having spent four days practically alone, thinking about me, about Arturo, about our lives, I was tired of thinking, tired of the nagging feeling that there was something I must do.

  Then a triumphant shout below brought me to my feet to peer over the balcony.

  “Thanks be to all the saints in heaven! We’re here. The big, fancy palace.” A man with a limp climbed down from the wagon and walked in a circle to loosen his hips. “My cousin Lopez says this here city is the best, but I don’t see anything that special.”

  “José!” I cried. The man craned back his neck, as did the woman still on the wagon. Marta! My friends from Duañez.

  “Señora Navarro? That you? The very person we’ve come to see?” He slapped his thighs. “What are the chances? I was just telling Marta here we’d likely spend days tracking you down.”

  Marta threw me such a desperate look I laughed out loud. “I’ll be right down.”

  “We got someone here in the wagon.” Musicians began playing in the square, drowning out my old friend.

  “Stay there,” I called. “I’m coming down.”

  I fairly skipped down the two stone staircases and raced through the central courtyard and out into the street. “Marta!” I clung to her with a fierceness that surprised us both. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “And you, too.” She dropped her voice. “Another day with José, and I’d have been forced to cut my own throat, no matter how near to Valencia we were.”

  José moved to the back of the wagon and flung back a blanket. “Move careful now, poor devil. No use scraping things and making ’em worse.” José helped a man inch his way toward the back of the wagon.

  “Kalleberg?” I nearly screamed as the professor twisted toward me. The professor. “Holy shit.”

  “Kate, oh, thank god.” Kalleberg spoke in English as José helped him from the wagon.

  “Go gentle now, man.” José winked at me. “We brung him on a horse, but after two days of that, his soft bottom nearly burst with blisters. Poor sot screamed in pain so we had no choice but to switch to this here wagon.”

  “Oh, Kate, you can’t imagine what I’ve been through. These kind people—”

  “Marta made up a salve, one of those really smelly ones that make you want to toss your supper, and she spread it on the poor man’s backside.” José leaned against his cane, settling in for a long story. “She made me help, a cruel, cruel thing. I saw more of that man’s ass than any man should see. Close my eyes and still get the nightmares. Lordy, I ain’t ever seen such a hairy—”

  “José! Please! Where did you find him?”

  Kalleberg now draped himself against the wagon wheel, grimacing so woefully I had to bite back a chuckle.

  “That cave you done sent us to.” Thank god my trust in Father Ruiz had not been misplaced.

  “We reached the cave,” Marta said, “and found him sitting outside, looking a bit like a lost puppy.”

  “So he did,” José said. “Like a cat who finds himself stuck up a tree and don’t know what to do.”

  “He doesn’t speak Castillan or Hebrew or Arabic, or Galician, so we haven’t understood a word he’s said.” Marta shook her dark head. “Of course these last few days all he’s done is moan.”

  “We could understand that, all right. And your name. When we found him, he kept saying your name, that he did. What are his chances two people who knew you would come along?”

  Marta touched my arm. “The only thing we could think to do was bring him to you.”

  “I’m glad you did.” I smiled at Kalleberg. “You’re a big surprise, professor.”

  He laughed softly, then winced. “Even thinking hurts, but I had to come see you. You won’t believe—”

  “Señora Navarro, that ain’t all we brung.” José pulled me to the back of the wagon and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “We dug up the bags of money like you said.”

  “There was more than enough to buy flour and meat in Burgos, so we can feed everyone in Duañez.”

  José flung back the tarp. “But we found more and thought we best bring it to you. Marta and me had a spat over whether you said to dig to the left
or to the right, so we done both.” Ten small chests lay in the wagon, identical to the chest I had buried with Anna. “They be full of gold, that they do.”

  Anna must have buried her own stash of gold in the cave as well. I knew just what to do with it. Rebuild the homes and fields and gardens and orchards of Valencia. Repair the damage done by Rodrigo’s siege.

  “José, do you remember Nuño Súarez ?”

  “Big bear of a man. I nearly crapped in my boots the first time he towered over me.”

  “He’s here, perhaps in the palace, or nearby. Find him, and he’ll show you a safe place for these chests. Marta, could you run into the palace and ask for Salaam? He is the court physician.”

  Kalleberg and I were suddenly alone in the busy street. “I cannot believe what riding a horse does to human flesh.” Kalleberg moaned.

  “Man, it’s good to see you. All these weeks I kept thinking about you in the cave.”

  “Not to worry. I got tired of camping out, so took a room in a little hotel a few blocks away. I checked the books constantly, but nothing changed. Then on June 15, everything in the books changed back to the original history, as if the altered timeline had never happened. I knew you’d done it.”

  I hugged him carefully. “June 15 was one hell of a day. But why did you come back?”

  He rubbed his chin ruefully. “When I realized I wouldn’t be blinked out of existence by that altered timeline, it was like being cured of cancer. As I stared at that ledge after you left, I realized what an opportunity I was giving up, both as a scholar and as a man, and I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my life. So I just sat on the ledge, and the rest José has told you.”

  I hugged him again, then he suddenly pulled back. “Kate, Arturo slipped past me while I slept. I woke up just as he disappeared. I’ve been worried sick—”

  “He caught up to me in the cave, Professor, and other than being kidnapped by a band of bloodthirsty archers and sold to a madwoman and trained to serve as the religious leader of all the Moors, he’s been with me the entire time.”