Soldier From the Sky, Book One: The Jewels of Saladin

By M.C. Clary

Soldier From the Sky
A sweeping tale of love, war, time and treasure in six books
World War II. Nick Mancuso, a Brooklyn-born, deadeye gunner on a B-24 bomber is severely wounded in aerial combat, bails out over the wintry Apennines and loses consciousness while still in his parachute, his last thoughts on his lover, Theresa.
He awakens displaced in time, under the care of Italian partisans. By ancient magic and force of fate he’s become his own medieval ancestor and leader of a peasant rebellion in collusion with the tyrant's dangerously enchanting daughter.
To return to Theresa and parallel existence Nick must fight for his life in a world of hidden treasure, superstition, star-crossed love, intrigue, brutality and betrayal, and show fierce bravery in an epic battle for gold, glory and survival in 14th Century Italy.

Book One: The Jewels of Saladin
Early in the 13th Century, a trove of gems, The Jewels of Saladin, is discovered in the ruins of Constantinople. Bound for Rome, they are lost in great sea storm.
Two decades later, a newly married, fugitive, on-the-run Cathar peasant couple find the jewels in a coastal cave. They disappear with their treasure far into the Apennine outlands, where they assume a new name, Montagna, and start a new life.
Biding time, using the treasure wisely, they build their reputation and the prosperous commune of San Michele, under the seal of their count, to guard and collect tolls and taxes on a caravan road through the mountains. Their secret faith, treasure and status are handed down to last-born sons. The village grows into a well-known town. In three generations, the bloodline of the Cathar runaways is granted barony. A century later the newest Baron Montagna is murdered by his brother and takes the location of the hidden treasure to his grave. The Montagna power and wealth grow, and the story of the Jewels of Saladin become fireside lore and lure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.C. Clary
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015

M.C. Clary

M.C. Clary is a world traveler, shepherd of strays, visitor of the night, singer in the rain, bronco buster, gold digger, hell raiser, zombie killer writer of fact and fiction in all their many forms, He lives and works in a crow's nest looking over Manhattan.

Book preview

Soldier From the Sky

a novel in six books

by M.C. Clary

c2015 Michael Clary

All rights reserved

Cover design by Larry Carroll

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for use of brief quotes in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Generations of men are like leaves,

In winter, winds blow them to earth,

But when spring comes again,

budding wood grows more. And so with men.

One generation grows, another dies.

Homer, The Iliad, 6:181-5

∞

Book One

∞

The Jewels of Saladin

Twice upon time…

The Jewels of Saladin

Chapters

1

2

3

4

5

Old World People

Italy 13th Century

Isotta L’Aquila, a Cathar peasant girl

Alberto L’Aquila, her father

Anna L’Aquila, her mother

Francesco, older brother

Giacomo, younger brother

‘Nonna’, grandmother, Anna L’Aquila’s mother

Donato Ardente, House of Datini page, steward, husband of Isotta

Giuliano Ardente, their son

Fantina Ardente, their daughter

Isotta and Donato’s alias identities: Ileana and Ettore Montagna, Founders of San Michele

Son Giuliano alias Alberto Montagna

Daughter Fantina alias Anna Montagna

Twins are born, Giacomo and Francesca Montagna

Count Bernabo Datini, Signore of Datini House, Podesta of Colomba

Count Luchino Valori, Signore of Valori House, Podesta of Sarago

Friar Stefano, Franciscan mendicant, nephew of Count Luchino Valori

Baron Bernardo Montagna, 4th generation Montagna House, Podesta of San Michele

Vincenzo Montagna, 4th generation, older brother

Sondra Montagna, 4th generation, younger sister

∞

1.

No one knows whether legend, fairy tale or truth, neither when the telling began, nor how or if it was exaggerated. Though the Montagna and other nobles of San Michele denied it even a germ of fact, over the years the story was embellished from tavern to caravan to fireside. It was said…

In 1206 Cardinal Benedetto Ucello, a stooped back, mongoose-eyed papal legate representing the dominion of Pope Innocent III, purchased passage for his entire consortium, from Constantinople to Venice, on the San Lucrezia, a Venetian war galley recently converted into a merchant ship that trafficked the Phoenician Sea under lateen sail. The records show passage was paid in links of gold chain.

Ucello had lived in Byzantium for several years, converting, jailing and burning Mohammedans, Cathars, Zoroastrians and other pagans and was ordered back to Rome to turn over his loot and collect reward for his achievements. He sailed with an entourage of six delegates, two monks, four servants, a jester, a favorite boy and phalanx of ten mercenary, Breton knights, mounted on horseback with lances, swords and crossbow.

That much was never doubted because correspondence, papal orders and his departure from Constantinople are recorded in Rome.

In the telling, Cardinal Ucello was also secretly transporting the Jewels of Saladin, a magnificent gold and bejeweled chest that the Sultan Saladin himself had given to the Emperor Andronicus in 1183. Two decades later, when Constantinople was sacked, the chest was discovered hidden behind stones in the wall of the royal treasury. It was purported to contain a coil of gold chain and gold bars from Damascus, strings of lapis, jade, a black topaz as big as a horse hoof, gold nuggets from Mongolia, fistfuls of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and pearls from the harems of Babylon, along with a bounty of silver and gold coins accrued from the banks of Constantinople. It would add handsomely to the apostolic treasury, and the financing of earthly crusade and Inquisition.

The night before the San Lucrezia sailed, Ucello himself placed the final object in the chest, an illuminated prayer to Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of warriors and bankers. It was scribed on lambskin vellum, rolled tightly and slipped inside a gold ring that was relieved with a likeness of the archangel and