Autumn, 1505
Oto, Aragón
Pelegrín
In his father’s chambers in the Tower of Blood, Pelegrín flung open the shutters, struck as usual by the beauty of the Broto Valley unfurling to the south. Cowbells jangled in some unseen pasture. He fixed his eyes on the silvery path of the river. It was the scene of countless childhood adventures, where he stalked fish and hunted dragonflies, where he learned to swim under the watchful eye of the steward Beltrán. Before he made the choice that turned Beltrán against him forever.
The ridges across the valley were dusted with snow. Pelegrín filled his lungs with cool autumn air. He was grateful to be an ocean away from the fetid battlefields of the Kingdom of Naples, where the stench of sweat and blood and iron festered under a brutal sun. How he longed to return to Oto during the endless days of war, during the ordeal of his father’s injury and death, during the tedious months after the Great Captain had claimed victory for Spain and insisted Pelegrín stay at his side.
He turned away from the window, surveying the correspondence on his father’s desk. Reluctantly he sat down in Ramón’s favorite chair. To his surprise, several letters were from the family of Beltrán, who had disappeared from the face of the earth after failing to carry out Ramón’s orders to kill Mira.
Pelegrín had gleaned from the servants that Marguerite learned of Beltrán’s plans to attack her daughter, sent Mira away, and stationed herself in Mira’s chamber. When Beltrán came for Mira in the night, he found her mother instead. Had Beltrán only discovered after the deed was done that he had murdered the wrong woman?
This question plagued Pelegrín. Mistake or no, Beltrán was undoubtedly pleased with the outcome. After all, the steward’s desire for Marguerite was only eclipsed by his anger at her power over him. When the opportunity came to run her through with a sword, he would not have hesitated.
But what happened next? Several castle dwellers told him Beltrán sent out hounds and men after Mira that night. Beltrán himself set out to track her at dawn. A dozen people watched him exit the castle gates. But none of the hounds or hunters found Mira, and the steward never returned.
A cold breeze ruffled the pile of correspondence. Pelegrín pulled the wolfpelt off the back of the chair and wrapped it around his shoulders, inhaling the scents of hide and fur. For a time he listened to the whispers of the wind, then forced his attention back to the letters from Beltrán’s family.
The first two were polite in tone, inquiring about Beltrán’s health. The third letter was threatening. Word had reached the family of the steward’s disappearance. They declared that knights would be dispatched from Barcelona to Castle Oto, demanding justice for their son.
Pelegrín shook his head. How often had he heard Beltrán complain of his lowly stature within the family? As a fourth son, he was ignored. The only value he offered was the gold he sent home regularly from Castle Oto. It was the gold that finally got his family’s attention—or the lack thereof.
So this was why a group of armed men had approached the castle not long ago. They had been sent from Barcelona to demand the gold Beltrán no longer sent home. But no one here knew any of this, and so they treated the men as attackers and harassed them until they went away.
Pelegrín leaned back in his seat and let the letter drift to the floor. Now he understood the significance of the red cloth he had found on the roadside during their approach to the castle. It was the banner of Beltrán’s family. The sigil it bore, though only a fragment, matched the seal on these letters.
He sighed, shaking his head. Beltrán’s family would have to be appeased—and soon. Before winter shut down the roads, he would send a pair of knights to Barcelona with a letter of explanation about the steward’s disappearance, along with a final payment of gold. He hated the thought of paying off the family of the man who murdered his mother, but it was best to resolve the matter once and for all.
He turned his attention back to the desk and picked up a heavy scroll. On its face was the royal seal. Carefully he cracked it open and unrolled the parchment.
It was a demand for an inventory of all the bounty his family had been given after the war for the Kingdom of Naples. What was more, Pelegrín himself was being summoned to Barcelona in the spring to personally hand over this list of items to King Ferdinand, along with a hefty tribute payment. If he did not comply, royal guards would be dispatched to escort him to Barcelona.
Dread seized Pelegrín’s stomach.
He knew exactly what had prompted this request. It all stemmed back to Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Great Captain. With Queen Isabella now dead, King Ferdinand picked loose the complex web of patronage and favoritism she had woven. Her relationship with the Great Captain had been the source of whispers and gossip since she was a young woman. Whether any of it was true, the fact remained that under her rule, the Great Captain had risen through the ranks of her army and led Spain to victory first in battles with the Moors, then across the sea in the Kingdom of Naples.
And he was now at the top of Ferdinand’s list of people to demote from royal favor, though he remained in Naples overseeing Ferdinand’s reconquest of various lands in Italy from the French invaders. There was some truth to the rumors about the man: when payment to soldiers never materialized from the royal coffers after the war, the Great Captain took it upon himself to distribute booty to his most valuable soldiers.
Including Pelegrín.
There was no one Pelegrín admired more on the battlefield. And during his father’s convalescence and death in the Kingdom of Naples, the Great Captain had become a friend, offering his personal surgeons, his priests, his counsel, and his sympathy.
Pelegrín was struck anew with shame at the memory of his father’s terrible confession in the days before his death. The agony of learning of his family’s grisly tradition, of discovering his father had ordered the murder of the twin sister he had never known simply because she was female.
He still did not know which was more powerful, the horror that suffused him at his father’s admission or the pride he felt in his mother Marguerite for defying her husband. After giving birth to twins, she had hidden her baby girl away—and given Mira a new life across the mountains.
He sighed, turning over the scroll in trembling hands. Then he put it aside and shuffled the pile again, selecting a letter sealed with the mark of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña. He unfolded it and held it up to the light. Reading the lines of script, he became uncharacteristically still.
Without warning, tears blurred his vision. He blinked, startled at the ache they produced in his eyes. It had been a long time since he cried. He had almost forgotten how it felt.
Pelegrín vaulted from his chair, the letters scattering like autumn leaves in his wake, and made for the door.