Summer, 1504
Basque Country
Elena
Elena had never been this far west before. They had traveled on foot through the mountains for nearly a fortnight, following the shepherds’ trails through meadows and forests that grew wetter and denser the closer they got to the sea. Each day beginning at dawn, she strode a short distance behind Xabi, breathing in the earthy, rich scents of the forest, half-listening to the trills and whistles of songbirds high in the canopy above them, charting the progress of the sun across the wide blue sky. If it were up to her, they would continue on this way until they reached the ends of the earth, where the rivers poured into the sea. But they were nearing their destination now. The quiet companionship of these days with Xabi was drawing to an end.
Afternoon was turning into evening when they came to the crest of a low hill that overlooked a grassy meadow. On the opposite end of the clearing, a broad-shouldered, bearded figure emerged from the woods and tramped across the grass. Two large white dogs wearing spiked iron collars padded alongside him.
He hurried toward them, waving both arms enthusiastically. Xabi and Elena descended into the meadow to meet him. The dogs settled back on their haunches, regarding their master with solemn eyes as he greeted Xabi and Elena in the mountain dialect. Elena realized this was for her benefit, since she could not understand a word of Basque.
As soon as the niceties were dispensed with the man placed his hands on Xabi’s shoulders and said solemnly, “Your sister’s dead, cousin. It happened last night, just after sunset.”
Xabi lowered his gaze. “At least she’s not suffering anymore.”
Elena slid her hand into Xabi’s, feeling a rush of sympathy for him. His mother had died when Xabi was a boy and his elder sister had been thrust into the role of motherhood long before she was ready. She never married, claiming the rewards of marriage were already hers: a brood of children and a whitewashed home with a peaked red-tiled roof that was every inch her domain.
But now it would all be Xabi’s.
Xabi’s cousin led them along the trail. A bear had been sighted near here not too long ago, he told them. That was why he had brought the dogs. It was odd, he said, a bear in summer. Usually bears stayed higher in the mountains until autumn, when they grew cranky and voracious, desperate to fill their bellies before winter silenced the land with its deep crust of snow.
“I suppose you’ll be happy to live in one place,” Xabi’s cousin said over his shoulder. “The shepherd’s life is no good when you have a woman.”
Elena pressed her lips together and lengthened her stride, put out at the assumption that she belonged to Xabi. He turned, saw her expression, smiled. She felt her heart soften. The fact was, she did belong to Xabi—and he to her. They had wintered together too many times to count in their secret valley with its steaming pools, ensconced in a snug stone cabin.
Last autumn she started her journey to their secret valley too late. She’d had no choice but to stay at Castle Oto as long as Mira remained there, to watch over the girl. On the day when the steward Beltrán had unspooled Ramón de Oto’s murderous plan and the arrow he launched at Elena hit wood instead of flesh, she fled to Ronzal. When Mira and Arnaud returned safely from the cave, she saw her opportunity to leave. But when they surprised everyone by announcing their intent to wed, she delayed her plans.
Mira and Arnaud were married on an autumn day that felt like midsummer. The Ronzal villagers slept under the stars around a bonfire that night, marveling at the sultry air. The next day began sunny and ended with snow flurries. Though Elena departed in haste, snow chased her west through the mountains all the way to the valley.
By the time she got there, Xabi had already resigned himself to a winter without Elena by his side. She smiled at the memory of their reunion, the quiet joy in his dark eyes at the sight of her.
Mira and Arnaud, for their part, must have been snowed in at Ronzal for the winter. If the gods were willing, they would soon make their way over the mountains. Before long they would be in Bayonne, settled into a new life by the sea.
Elena could never think of Mira now without thinking of her mother, Marguerite. From the beginning, Elena was convinced she could never love a noblewoman, especially not a member of the house of Oto. But she had grown to respect Marguerite. More than that, she had become fiercely protective of her. Despite the enormous gulf between them—a mountain woman and a high-born lady—they understood one another in the end. And the knowledge that Marguerite had sacrificed her own life so that Mira could live elevated the noblewoman even higher in Elena’s estimation.
Walking along the quiet forest trail with Xabi’s warm hand in hers, Elena wished for one more chance to talk to Marguerite, to tell her that Mira was safe, married to a good man, with a future full of promise. Just as she’d always hoped.
They rounded a curve and the whitewashed house came into view. Nestled in the crook of two sloping hills, the house was surrounded by fruit trees, a summer garden, and close-cropped grass. A flock of goats stood in a pen just outside the barn a short distance from the house. One of them began rasping excitedly at the sight of the dogs.
The broad, battered wooden door opened as they approached.
“Xabi,” a woman cried. She ran to him and threw her arms around him, sobbing and talking a wild streak of Basque.
Soon Elena was longing for the quiet of their hidden valley. Xabi’s family was loud and argumentative. They spent every evening picking apart discrepancies in stories, trundling out the same bits of family lore again and again, unravelling it all before the fire along with copious helpings of wine until everyone began to nod off under the weight of so many words.
Elena often found Xabi’s eyes in the midst of these smoky, ear-splitting soirées, and he would shrug slightly, or raise and lower one eyebrow so fast that she wondered if that was really what she saw, or draw down half his mouth in a lopsided smile. She would take a deep breath and let it out, feeling herself grow calm under his gaze.
They were together, that was the important thing. These people roaring and screeching in their mysterious language—she would grow to accept their ways. Perhaps she would one day understand them, although there was a small comfort in her foreignness. It gave her the freedom to lose herself in her own thoughts while the rest of them were caught up in their stories.
“We’ll have to marry,” Xabi told Elena one night in bed.
She ran a finger up and down his forearm, tracing the slight furrow between two lines of muscle.
“What if I don’t want to?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’ll be forced to wed with a dagger at my neck, is that it?” She rolled away from him.
He snorted, folding his arms under his head.
“I’d never force you to do anything.”
She couldn’t argue with that, but she felt like arguing anyway. The prickly side of her was outraged that his family would assume they could ram their traditions down her throat. The practical side of her knew that for all intents and purposes, she and Xabi were married. Formalizing things would not change their feelings for each other. But the idea that outsiders would press a union upon them—it didn’t sit right with her.
“Do you truly want to live trapped in this house for the rest of your life? After all of your wanderings?”
“I won’t be trapped here. There are plenty of others only too eager to take on the work. I could leave tomorrow, come back a year from now.”
Now it was her turn to snort.
“Your days of following the flocks are over. You see how they look to you every time a decision must be made. Your sister led this family, but not one sibling other than you is capable of following in her footsteps. It’s not hard to see.”
“There are a few who can learn,” he protested. “They just need the right training.”
“But if you leave for a year, who will train them?”
He sighed. “Maybe a year is too much, but a season’s reasonable. Next year I want to go to the coast again and help my cousin with the whale harvest. There’s money to be had in that. We need it.”
Her ears pricked up. “I’ve always wanted to visit the sea.”
He slid his arm around her again, and she settled into the warmth of his neck.
“Marry me, and the sea with all its treasures’ll be yours.”
His hand slipped under her shift, his fingertips lazily following the curve of her hip.
“How can I say no to such a gift?” she whispered, relaxing under his touch.
A gentle rain began to patter on the roof.