Reconquista

By J.J. Anderson

It is October 1264. Outside the city an army awaits the signal to attack.
Within the city walls, fourteen year old Nathan, his older cousin, Rebecca and their friend, Atta, face an uncertain future. On this fateful day, the city they have always known is about to be torn apart. Friends and family are about to be scattered far and wide. Each of them has a fateful decision to make.Each has a journey to undertake.
In war-torn Al Andalus King and Emir vie for supremacy. Bandits and pirates roam land and sea in their wake, as our heroes set out on their desperate journeys to find freedom and safety. If they are to succeed, they must first face down their fears and decide what sort of people they want to be. All of them have to grow up.
Not all of them will make it home.
Book 1 in the Al Andalus series

Long listed Children's Book of the Year Award 2016

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. Anderson
• Release date: Mar 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9780993210655

J.J. Anderson

Julie Anderson is a writer and author. She writes contemporary crime thrillers for Claret Press as Julie Anderson, her latest is 'Oracle' Book 2 in the Cassandra Fortune series which began with 'Plague'. She lives in south London and blogs occasionally about topics which interest her on the web-site www.julieandersonwriter.com. You can also find her on Twitter as jjulieanderson. Julie is Chair of Trustees of Clapham Writers, the charitable organisation which produces the annual Clapham Book Festival, now in its fourth year and sponsors literacy and reading in the wider community. She curates literary events at Festivals such as the Lambeth Country Show and Crystal Palace Overground Festival. She edited the annual Story Bazaar Compendium series for four years, containing articles and fiction from a variety of contributors. Her non-fiction writing work appears in a variety of places, including on academic courses and other online sites.

Book preview

In the City

1.

Besieged

‘Take cover!’

Nathan spun around to see who had shouted, but it was impossible to tell.

In the old and narrow street people were running, darting into shops and houses, hurrying down alleyways. Doors and windows thudded shut. An ironmonger hastened to lift his wares down from their hooks and retreated inside his building.

Nathan was buffeted aside as a large man ran past, tripping over a frightened, yowling cat. Nathan fell forwards, his knees hitting the cobblestones.

‘Ow!’

Ignore the pain. Get to safety.

Soon the burning firebombs would rain down. His home was streets away. He’d never get there in time.

Shutters were closing.

He scrambled to his feet, looking for a place to shelter. There was a deeply recessed doorway in a house at the side of the street. That would be better than nothing. He hurried over to it and pounded on the wooden door.

‘Let me in! Please! Is anyone there?’

The door remained closed.

Leaning back to look up and down the lane, Nathan saw it was empty, even the cat had disappeared. All its doors and windows were closed and shuttered tight. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Small for his fourteen years and slightly built, he pressed himself against the stone upright of the doorway beneath its wide stone lintel, his shoulder against the door. He looked up at the sliver of blue sky between the tall buildings, watching out for the smoke-trailing bombs.

Then the earth shook.

The stone reverberated with the shock and Nathan staggered. Dust rose from the cobbles and fell from roof tiles and sills.

‘What....? What was that?’ A voice came from somewhere down the street.

‘The big gun.’ An answer came from the shuttered window above Nathan’s head.

The cannon.

The massive metal machine had arrived outside the city several days before, dragged into place by long teams of horses. The people of Jerez had watched its arrival from the walls, anxious and afraid of the havoc it could wreak.

This was the latest attempt by King Alfonso X of Castile and Leon to end the siege. The King led the Christian army from the north, come to regain the rich southlands of Al Andalus from the Moors.

Only yesterday Nathan and his friends, Juan and Atta, had climbed onto the battlements to view the cannon. From their high vantage point they looked down between the stone crenellations at the army camp, set out less than half a mile away. There were lines of tents, stacks of pikes and many bustling leather-clad figures moving about the camp. The gusting breeze brought the smell from the many cook-fires to the town and made Nathan’s mouth water.

‘There seems to be even more of them,’ Atta said.

Over the months of the siege the army had grown. This war seemed to have been going on for as long as Nathan could remember.

‘My father says the King’s summoning all his lords and barons,’ said Juan. ’Though maybe that’s really to stop them plotting behind his back.’

Banners fluttered in the breeze and the rearing claret lion of Leon and the golden towers of Castile were prominent amid the pennants and flags of his vassal lords and cities. Large, caparisoned horses carried armoured knights practising their skills. They could hear the clash of their swords and shields ringing out across the plain.

The giant wooden skeletons of catapults, trebuchets and mangonels lay still. Hung about with ropes and pulleys, they waited for the next attack. The huge stone counter-weights poised atop their frames towered over the men around them. Yet even these machines were dwarfed by the cannon. Nathan had heard tales of such mighty guns, but had never seen one.

‘What’s it made of?’ Juan asked.

‘Metal,’ Atta replied.

‘Yeah,’ Juan gave him a sarcastic look. ‘Bronze or iron?

‘Bronze, I think,’ Nathan answered. He knew about metals. ‘Less friction than with iron.’

‘It’s aimed at the Alcazar,’ Atta said and three pairs of eyes followed the trajectory from the cannon’s mouth towards the city.

Yes, the Alcazar, the ancient fortress at the highest point of the city walls - that would be its first target. The old citadel was by far the strongest point of the defence.

The Alcazar.

As he sheltered in the doorway, the hairs on Nathan’s skin rose. Hadn’t Juan been headed for the Alcazar? Taking a message for his father, Don Carlos, who commanded the town’s militia there.

Had the cannon hit the Alcazar? Had his friend been caught in the explosion?

He had to find out.

There was a whining sound overhead, it was the firebombs, the black spheres with smoking tails veering across the sky. Already the acrid smell of smoke caught in Nathan’s throat.

He left his refuge and ran, zigzagging along the cobbled street, until he reached the corner. He peered around it. Just down the hill and across the street he saw the mosque. Its tall minaret was still standing, but its large dome was fractured and deep fissures ran down its walls. Beyond it an ominous grey cloud was hanging in the air. Above the Alcazar.

Nathan snorted and rubbed the dust and grit from his eyes and nose. He shook his head - his short brown hair was thick and heavy with dirt. His clothes too.

To his right, the wide, paved road ran down the hill, snaking between tall buildings until it reached the walls. Men were running down, carrying weapons for the defenders and stretchers for the wounded. The assault had renewed.

He looked left. The road narrowed as it went up the hill to the city forge. He could hear the familiar clang of metal upon metal. It was still working, so it hadn’t been hit. Nathan gave a sigh of relief. His father was there, helping the blacksmiths.

But where was Juan and what had happened to him?

Atta might know? He was working at the hospital, beyond the shattered mosque.

Nathan needed to get across the road. After that he could go by the back-ways. He took a deep breath and, bending low, he dashed across the open space towards a cobbled alleyway opposite. A new barrage of rocks and stones began.

There was a crash behind him and the air was filled with dust. Nathan gained the safety of the alley and looked back. The corner of the wall, where he had been standing only seconds before, had been reduced to stones and rubble. He had moved only just in time.

Nathan sprinted up the steep gradient of the alley.

At the top of the slope he stopped, panting. He couldn’t breathe, his head hurt and his vision swam. He hadn’t eaten well for weeks. No-one had. The livestock was slaughtered early in the siege and the grain ration had gradually reduced as it lengthened. There wasn’t a grapevine or an orange tree in the city which hadn’t been stripped of fruit and foliage. Many were then cut down for fuel for the city forge and bakeries.

Nathan put his head between his knees and breathed deep.

The dizziness faded and he forced himself on. He raced from building to building, as fire bombs continued to fall, their oil spilling flames across the streets. In front of him a man, his clothes alight, was reeling from side to side, desperately trying to smother the flames with his hands. He fell to the ground and people came out of a house to help him. They beat out the flames on his back as they pulled him through a doorway.

The hospital was just ahead. Nathan could see the wide, low entrance to the single storey building, built into the side of the hill itself. Incredibly, its striped awning was still in place. In normal times patients sat in its shade, to take the air. Now it was weighed down with wreckage and bricks.

Between Nathan and the hospital was the open space of the square behind the mosque. Its tiled pavement was pitted and littered with debris. He would have to make a dash across it.

Nathan looked up to the sky. It seemed the bombardment had stopped.

He inhaled, then sprinted away, leaping over up-ended flagstones and broken tiles, dodging newly made crevasses, which might catch his foot or turn his ankle. As his hands smacked up against the hospital wall, beneath the awning, he felt the stone shake as the aerial attack resumed.

Nathan ducked beneath the low lintel into the hospital. For a moment he saw nothing as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The cavernous space reached back into the stone of the hillside with pallet beds lying in untidy rows upon every inch of floor, their occupants lying listless or moaning. Rush lights glimmered from metal stands, the flames of tall, thin tapers struggling to dispel the gloom. One area was lamp-lit and bright.

Nathan headed towards it.

As he approached, hospital workers carried a stretcher from behind a wooden screen, followed by a tall, gaunt figure. It was Atta’s father, Don Reza. He looked bone weary as he wiped his bloodied hands on a cloth given to him by an aide and mopped his brow. Nathan waved to catch his attention. Don Reza saw him.

‘Nathan,’ he called. ‘I think Atta’s gone to the Alcazar to find Juan.’

So Atta had acted quickly. Nathan hoped that he was safe.

There was a commotion at the hospital entrance. Nathan turned to see what was afoot. Men carrying stretchers bearing wounded, crying people, were arriving. Orderlies hurried towards them.

‘We’re getting the first of the casualties from the blast now,’ Don Reza said. ‘Find Atta and tell him to get back here as quickly as he can, I’ll need his help.’

Nathan stepped back between the pallet beds, to let past a bloodied patient on a stretcher. The man was strapped down, his head thrown back and teeth bared in pain. His left leg was a mangled mass of flesh. Nathan’s stomach heaved. He looked away and hurried back towards the open air.

Outside more wounded were arriving, a straggle of humanity, all coming from the direction of the Alcazar. Nathan skirted past them, making for the street next to the fortress.

Here the buildings were in ruins. Part of the madrasa, the Muslim school, was destroyed. Nathan could see the internal courtyard and fountain, the leaves of its palmettos thick and brown with dirt. Young children wailed in the heat and smoke of the rubble and women cried out to them.

Nathan turned away, his eyes stinging. He had to get to the Alcazar.

Ahead, the high walls of the fortress looked impregnable. The huge blocks of stone seemed to have stood forever, looming over the town. The street was crowded with townsfolk who had sought shelter from the firestorm in the protective shadow of the citadel.

Nathan gritted his teeth and pressed forwards. He pushed into gaps in the crowd, furiously elbowing his neighbours and being shoved in return. The air grew thick with the smell of burning wood. The beams of some of the ruined buildings had caught alight. The crowd parted to let a group of men through, they carried a scorched and bloody body on a door, as a makeshift stretcher, lifted high on their shoulders. His arm was dangling down.

‘Make way,’ they shouted and pushed their way through the mass of people.

As they passed, Nathan glimpsed a ring on the hand of the injured man. It was the Delgado crest.

So the man on the stretcher must be Don Carlos, Juan’s father. Nathan watched as the men continued on, but then he was thrust aside by another phalanx of stretcher bearers.

Nathan was going against the flow now. People weren’t trying to enter the castle, they were trying to get away from it. He fought his way to a small door in the tall and heavy castle gates. There were no guards so he slipped through.

Within, the wide courtyard was filled with rubble and covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust. Nathan could see the blue sky through a gaping hole high up in the inner wall. The outer bastion beyond it had been blown apart by the cannon shot.

Soldiers were jostling into the breach, clambering down the stones of the destroyed castle walls, weapons strapped to their backs. Nathan heard the clash of swords and banging of shields as they met the attackers below. He imagined the tide of men in the army on the plain, surging towards the Alcazar and the King’s soldiers charging over the fallen walls.

The defending sortie wouldn’t be able to hold for long.

Inside, their comrades rushed to pile blocks of stone and massive wooden beams against the remnants of the wall. In a frenzy soldiers clambered up the makeshift barrier, carrying panniers of rubble and brick which they emptied into gaps in the barricade, then leapt back to the ground. But the gap in the walls was still there.

In the open space of the courtyard dust-covered people, old men, women and girls, combed the wreckage, turning over blocks of mortar and brick, each calling out for their missing loved ones.

Where was Atta?

Nathan scanned the searchers.

There he was, his long legs braced between two great chunks of stone as he scrabbled at the rubble. He was caked in grime, his features blurred, but his gangly form was easy to recognize.

‘Atta!’ Nathan called. ‘Atta.’

His friend looked up and waved.

‘Have you seen Juan?’ Nathan clambered through the debris, the brick and stone moving beneath his feet.

Atta shook his head, wiped his eyes and pushed his long fringe back from his brow. ‘They say he was on the battlements when the cannon shot hit.’

Nathan looked at the high jagged walls. Juan would have been flung backwards at least twenty feet amid the broken stones of the walls. Was he buried beneath them? Was he even alive?

‘I thought I saw Don Carlos, being carried away?’

‘Yes, but...,’ Atta gave a helpless shrug. ‘They’ve taken him to the hospital. If he can be saved, father will save him. Come on, we’ve got to find Juan.’

Both tugged and scraped at the rubble, casting the smaller stones away. Together, they put their shoulders and backs to the larger heavy blocks to lever them aside.

‘Juan!’ Atta yelled and Nathan joined in. ‘Juan!’

Where is he? He had to be here somewhere.

‘We must find him,’ Nathan said. ‘What -?’

There were shouts from the wall. The sortie of soldiers was returning.

‘Quick,’ Atta said. ‘We might not have much time.’

They both scrabbled furiously at the rubble.

Over on the remaining battlements, the defenders were being hauled back up by their comrades, their heavy leather armour stuck with arrows.

‘We can’t hold for much longer,’ Nathan heard one red-faced, battered fighter say. ‘Get everyone out who’s not fighting.’

Nathan redoubled his efforts, tearing at the rocks. Beside him, Atta was doing the same.

‘Juan!’ They called in unison.

‘Out!’ A large man wearing an officer’s blazon was ordering the soldiers. ‘Get them out! All of them.’

A line of soldiers began stepping over the debris, forcing back the townspeople who were searching the wreckage.

‘No...,’ Nathan argued as they drew closer. ‘It’s our friend...’

His pleas fell on deaf ears. He and Atta were pushed back, with the others, to the walls and then through the door in the gates. As the door slammed behind them, Nathan heard the cross-piece drop.

The sounds of battle in the Alcazar heightened. As they walked away Nathan turned to look back at the citadel, its battlements like blackened teeth against a sky filled with smoke and dust.

2.

Plaza Plateros

At the entrance to the hospital injured people lay upon the broken flagstones amid the wreckage of the newly fallen awning. Those who could walk clustered around hospital staff, calling for attention. Nathan heard their cries but he felt nothing. He was numb. None of this seemed real.

‘Water,’ he heard a familiar voice croak.

It was old Joseph Levy, a stable hand from the livery near the Sevilla gate, lying on the floor, one arm bent beneath him. As Nathan watched, a young man brought a bowl of water over to him from the well in the mosque. Joe grasped it one handed and drank thirstily, slopping the water over the sides.

‘Atta!’ Don Reza called from the hospital doorway. ‘Set up outside − there’s no room in here.’

Atta disappeared into the hospital, following his father. Shortly afterwards he returned with an orderly, each of them holding the end of an oblong table. They placed it close by the hospital wall. Another orderly brought bandages, ointments and salves.

Everything seemed to be happening in a dream.

‘I’ll need a butt of water,’ Atta was saying as he ordered the items on the table. The second man headed over to the mosque. ‘Nathan, help me with this,’ he called. ‘Nathan!’

‘What?’ Nathan blinked and shook his head. ‘Yes. I’ll help.’

People began to surround them.

‘My leg! It’s my leg!’ A young man was shouting as he hobbled forward, his leg cut open.

‘Here! Save her! Save her!’

A woman thrust a squealing child at him. Nathan recoiled, almost knocking over the table.

‘Form a line there!’ Atta called. ‘Form a line.’

The townspeople did as he said, clustering into a long, snaking line.

‘You clean the wounds, then I’ll treat them.’ Atta said, placing a wooden stool by the foot of the table. ‘Nathan?’ He patted its seat. ‘Here. Nathan. Sit them here.’

Nathan nodded agreement.

He’d seen Atta at work before. One day he would be a surgeon, like his father. The friends used sometimes to accompany Don Reza on his rounds about the city and Nathan had watched with gruesome fascination as father and son treated broken limbs, sick babies and the old or infirm.

Nathan looked at the line of waiting people.

There were men wearing tattered fabric bandages, wailing women with tiny, big-eyed babies and youths and girls, some older than he was, all needing help. Many were bloody. He saw white bone protruding from flesh and tried not to retch. Watching Don Reza was one thing, treating casualties yourself was different. He’d never be able to do it.

The orderly returned, rolling a large water barrel before him. He unsealed the cask and dipped the bowls into the water, setting them out on the table. He was going to help treat the waiting crowd.

Nathan relaxed.

But then the man hurried back into the hospital.

Nathan watched him go, unable to speak.

‘Nathan Calamiel?’ It was Joseph Levy calling. ‘Is that you? Helping your friend? Bless you if you can bind up my arm.’ The old man’s dark eyes fixed upon Nathan’s, full of expectation.

There was nothing for it. He would have to do it himself.

‘Yes, sir, it’s me.’ Nathan gestured for his first patient, the young man with the damaged leg, to sit. ‘I’ll get to you soon, I promise.’

Nathan knelt before the youth. He picked up a wad of cotton and dipped it into the water. Swallowing his disgust, he began swabbing the dirt and grit away from the wound. The young man cried out and pulled back, he couldn’t bear the touch of the fabric.

From further down the line a brawny man came forward. He nodded to Nathan and held the young man still. Ignoring the cries and the blood Nathan cleaned the wound. The young man rose and limped towards Atta, who was waiting at the far end of the table with salve, bandages and a threaded needle.

‘Good!’ Atta called. He nodded and smiled, as the youth sat. ‘Get all the muck out of the wounds. Keep going!’ Atta turned to his patient. The young man fainted away as he plied his needle.

Nathan returned to the task. His next patient was a baby, whose head was covered in blood. He took the child from the woman who carried it. It smelled sour and milky and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. He washed the baby’s head, teasing its congealed curls apart, but his fingers could find no wound, so the blood belonged to someone else.

‘It – she – he - s’all right,’ he said, handing the baby back to the woman.

The waiting line grew as more injured arrived. Above the cries of pain Nathan could still hear the sounds of battle. It had been a while since the last aerial bombardment. This was a sure sign that the attackers were closing in. The besieging army would not risk hitting its own soldiers.

In the shadow of the hospital wall, Nathan wrenched his thoughts away from the battle. He would not let himself think about the Alcazar and what had happened to his friend. He had to concentrate on his work. He called the next patient forward.

*

In the late afternoon sun Nathan was still at his station, tending the wounded. He was almost ready to drop with tiredness when the shadow of a man fell across him, his broad shoulders blocking out the sunlight. Nathan looked up. It was his father, Simon.

Nathan smiled, weakly, and noticed the silence for the first time. Beyond the immediate sounds of the hospital there was a quiet unlike anything since before the siege began.

‘What’s happening?’ Nathan asked.

‘The city council has gone to seek terms of surrender,’ Simon replied. ‘I saw them as they passed the forge on their way to the north gate. We can’t hold out now the walls have been breached. ’

They had lost. The King had won.

Nathan’s insides felt heavy with dread. What would happen now? It was too late to leave. What would become of them?

Don Reza emerged from the dark doorway of the hospital, wiping blood from his hands on a cloth. His face looked drawn and he pressed his lips together in a grim smile.

‘So this was all for nothing,’ he said. He indicated the injured, frightened people lying and waiting on the broken pavement. Those that could were leaving, making their way back to their homes. The news of the surrender was spreading.

‘Perhaps....’ Simon was interrupted by the distant sound of cheering. ‘It sounds like the King’s men have learned of the surrender. I pray there isn’t a sack.’

‘Why should there be?’ Don Reza gave Simon a sharp look. ‘We surrendered.’

Nathan exchanged fearful glances with Atta.

‘Either way,’ Simon said. ‘You and Atta should stay with us, in the Juderia.’

‘If reprisals are what they want, Simon, the Jews won’t be exempt,’ Don Reza smiled, grimly. ‘You’ll have enough to worry about without Moors hiding out in your compound.’

‘Reza...’ Simon put his hand upon the surgeon’s arm. Nathan could tell from his father’s tone of voice that more bad news was coming. ‘The market quarter was almost wiped out, obliterated. You probably don’t have a home to return to.’

Nathan gasped and turned to his friend.

Atta rose from his seat, looking up at his father. Don Reza gave his son a bleak smile and put an arm around Atta’s shoulders.

‘We’ll gladly stay with you and your family, Simon. Thank you. But...,’ he hesitated. ‘Has everything gone? What about my birds?’

Don Reza kept an aviary.

‘I don’t know, Reza. Maybe your neighbours managed to free them?’ Simon said. ‘I’m told Don Carlos was brought in. How is he?’

Don Reza shook his head.

Simon sighed, almost imperceptibly. ‘And Juan..?’

Again, Don Reza shook his head.

‘No sign,’ he said.

‘We must go and search...’ Nathan began, but his father cut him short.

‘You’re coming home.’ Simon’s voice was firm. ‘The King’s men will be on the streets soon and by then we must be inside.’

Nathan realised that it would be useless to argue.

Don Reza went back inside the hospital, while Atta cleared the table. Orderlies took those wounded who could not walk into the hospital.

‘So what’s going to happen now?’ Nathan asked his father.

Simon hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, after a pause. ‘We get home and lock the gate. Then we wait.’

Don Reza re-emerged from the hospital carrying a leather instrument case. Atta carried a box. Together they all set off for