Autumn, 1506
Basque country
Elena
Elena looked down at the mist-shrouded valley. From this vantage point on a ridge, she had a clear view of the white-washed house with its red tile roof. The kitchen garden, the livestock pens, the orchard—all was just as she had left it on that spring day so long ago.
The deep rumble of a dog’s bark sounded in the distance. As she watched, a woman came out the front door with a basket under her arm. One of Xabi’s sisters, no doubt. Elena’s excitement at seeing him again was instantly tempered with dread. Now she would reenter the world she had yearned so desperately to escape—the constant swirl of arguments, laughter, stories, disputes, all rendered in an avalanche of Basque. For someone who had spent much of her life in solitude, being crammed together with a boisterous family was a shock to the system.
Xabi had loved his nomadic ways, too. Yet when the call came for him to assume his role as master of the homestead, he heeded his family’s wishes and did his best to adapt. Elena had accompanied him gladly, but the reality of his family’s world was unbearable to her.
When she and Xabi decided to wed, the resulting squabbles over the minutiae of the wedding festivities were the last straw. A summons from the monastery of San Juan de la Peña to nurse Brother Arros through a grave illness gave her the excuse she craved to escape. And at first, her relief at getting away was so intense she questioned the depth of her feelings for Xabi.
But once she returned to Castle Oto, the loneliness she endured forced Elena to reconsider her view of the Mendieta homestead. Her longing for Xabi’s companionship—his quiet laugh and kind gaze, his way with a story, his body warming her bed—grew stronger with each passing day. Finally, she concluded that anything was tolerable if it meant having Xabi at her side again.
Staring at the bucolic scene in the valley below, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her wings were about to be clipped.
“Come on.” She waved at Alejandro and the knights, who waited on their horses just behind her on the trail. “We’ve arrived.”
Xabi’s cousin—the only one of the clan who spoke the mountain dialect fluently—came cautiously out the front door. Behind him clustered several of Xabi’s male relatives, their faces somber.
Elena raised a hand in greeting. “It’s good to see you again,” she said in hesitant Basque.
“And you as well,” he responded.
“Where is Xabi?” she asked.
Xabi’s cousin regarded Alejandro, who was encased in the suit of leather armor Elena had made for him. Then his gaze slid to each knight in turn, to their horses, their fine-tooled saddles and bridles.
“We thought you were dead,” he said to Elena in the mountain dialect, a hint of accusation in his tone. “That’s why Xabi left. He figured you must have died. Because you never came back, though you said you would.”
“But I have come back,” she pointed out coolly. “Where did Xabi go?”
“Across the sea, whale hunting.” The man fiddled with the buttons on his vest.
“What?” Elena stared at him in disbelief. She leapt from her saddle and handed her horse’s reins to one of the knights.
“Xabi’s no sailor,” she said, stalking forward.
Muttered conversations in rapid-fire Basque drifted from the open doorway. The family mark, carved into the wooden beam that supported the doorframe, glistened with oil. She remembered Xabi’s voice in her ear when they were entwined under warm blankets one cold night in this house. He vowed he’d replace that wooden beam, said a mason would carve the family’s mark into stone and preserve it forever.
“We have cousins on the coast who’ve hunted whales for generations,” the man said, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling his gaze at her. “One of them has been living in Bayonne, helping a pair of merchants prepare to sail across the sea hunting for whales. They asked for more Basque men to join the hunt. Xabi answered the call.”
“But the sea is full of dangers!” Elena protested.
“Xabi’s exactly the kind of man a Basque chalupa needs,” he scoffed. “And he’ll be paid richly for his trouble. The whole family will benefit.”
“When will he return?”
Xabi’s cousin shrugged. “Before the winter solstice.”
“And where did the ship sail from?”
“Bayonne.”
Elena glanced at Alejandro. He sat slumped in the saddle, staring vacantly at the ground. A rest and some food would do him good. Normally the custom was to invite travelers inside for refreshment, and as Xabi’s companion and future wife, she was entitled to hospitality. Then she thought of the knights. Three of Xabi’s sisters peered at them from the doorway, their shawls pulled tight around their shoulders, watching the strange men with worried eyes.
Xabi’s family was already suspicious of her. A group of Aragónese knights lodging here would cause no end of turmoil in the household.
“We will be on our way, then.” She returned to her horse and swung into the saddle.
“You’re not staying?” Xabi’s cousin did not hide his relief.
“No. You already have enough mouths to feed. We have business in Bayonne ourselves, so we might as well continue west.”
“What business would you have there?” he asked.
“Family business. Regarding my nephew—” she inclined her head toward Alejandro. “And his sister.”
“He has the air of the noble-born, that one,” the cousin observed. “And you say he’s your kin?”
“I did say that, yes.” Elena offered no more explanation, though his curiosity was evident.
After it became obvious that Elena was not going to enlighten him further, he cleared his throat.
“Feel free to water your mounts,” Xabi’s cousin said gruffly. “And help yourselves to apples.” He gestured at the orchard that sat between the house and the stream. “Safe travels to you.”
Their mounts plodded along a narrow trail that led out of the valley. Elena munched on an apple and periodically glanced over her shoulder to see if Xabi’s family still stood huddled together, watching them. It was not until they were well under cover of the forest that she stopped turning back to look. The only evidence of the homestead in these woods was the faint scent of woodsmoke hanging in the air.
“Are you still going to marry Xabi?” Alejandro asked after a time, yawning. Any moment now he would fall asleep and tumble off his horse, Elena was sure.
“I’ll answer that when he’s safely back from sea,” she replied.
“How much longer will the journey take?”
“I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “There are pilgrims’ trails all over these hills. We’ll follow them west and see where we come out.”
“The ends of the earth, that’s where,” one of the knights grumped.
“And won’t we be lucky to see the rivers pour into the sea,” Elena retorted. “There aren’t many who get to witness that.”
“Sea monsters,” Alejandro said, perking up. “Will we see any?”
“I’d say so. That’s where they live, isn’t it?”
“They have teeth and wings and fins,” he said, twisting in his saddle to face the knights. “They can pull a ship down into the sea and spit it out on shore!”
The knights feigned interest in Alejandro’s words, but Elena knew they were too tired and hungry to care about sea monsters. An uneasy thought struck her. She had promised the men safe haven in Basque country—and failed them.
For the first time on their journey, she wondered just how loyal Pelegrín’s men were to the house of Oto.