The King in the Stone

By Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

A full moon,
a silver key,
and the forbidden passion of two young lovers
will bring hope to a defeated kingdom
and, through their sorrow, deliver a king
who will change its fate

Sent back in time through a portal the full moon opens, Julian and Andrea are caught in opposite sides of the battle between the last Spanish stronghold and the Arabian invaders. A battle for survival that will determine the fate of a kingdom and demand of them the ultimate sacrifice: As the Arabs close on the mountains, Julián makes a decision that will break Andrea’s heart and change them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carmen Ferreiro Esteban
• Release date: Jul 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536528916

Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

An Adams Media author.

Book preview

THE KING

IN THE STONE

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Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

The King in the Stone

Text Copyright © 2016 by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

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

Cover designed by Nathalia Suellen and Pat Achilles

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http://www.carmenferreiroesteban.com/

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To my son Simón

who made me who I am,

a better person, because he was,

even if so briefly,

in this world.

Blond hair, blue eyes,

the tenuous memory of a dream

lost in sorrow.

A life cut short.

Yours,

mine,

ours.

In love, in peace, in memory.

To Simón

Why do we remember the past and not the future?

—Professor Larry Fleinhardt

Numb3rs, Season 1, episode 1. Ridley Scott and Tony Scott.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The King in the Stone

2. Covadonga

3. Her Majesty

4. The Village

5. The Cave

6. Doña Irene

7. The Guardians of the Mountains

8. Uncle Raymond

9. Kelsey

10. Missing

11. Witiza’s Son

12. The End of the Waiting

13. Trapped in the Mountains

Part II.  The Mountains Will

14. Summer Love/Winter Snow

15. Theodorica

16. The Seer

17. The council

18. The Bear

19. Father Valerio

20. The Shadow King

21. The Awakening

22. Down the Mountains

23. In the Village

24. Attika’s Challenge

25. Attika’s Winter

26. Winter into Spring

27. For Silks and Silver

28. An Empty Grave

29. They Have Julián

30. Roderic’s Heir

31. A King is Born

32. Mununza’s Revenge

33. The Mountains’ Will

Part III  The King in the Mountain

34. Talk to Him

35. Someone to Blame

36. Mourning

37. The Key

38. The King in the Stone

Historical note

Part I

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The Guardians of the Mountains

1. The King in the Stone

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Andrea

The first time I felt the pull of the mountains, I was in the car with John.

Barely a week had passed since Julián had ended our short and ill-fated engagement, and here I was, already a continent and an ocean away, driving up the mountains of northern Spain.

John, my uncle’s graduate student back in California, had come to join the Spanish team investigate a Celtic village and gather data for his dissertation.

I, officially at least, had come to gain hands on experience and find out whether I wanted to pursue a major in Archeology come this fall. In truth, I had come to avoid Julián. He would be gone back to our world, his studies finished, by the time of my return. And my longing for him would be gone as well. Or so I kept telling myself.

Exhausted after two long flights and lulled by John’s excited chatter, I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were climbing up a narrow road carved in the walls of a mountain pass. On my right, the cliff fell hundreds of meters to a deep gorge where I could guess a stream cutting its way through the rock. On the other side of the road, a mighty wall blocked my view.

What do you think, Andrea? Impressive, isn’t it? John asked me, his voice almost a whisper.

Used to the rolling hills of his native California, his awe was understandable. I was impressed too, for although there are mountains in my father’s kingdom, none of them could compare to these.

I nodded. Where are we?

Desfiladero de los Beyos––The Beyos gorge, John said. We’ll be arriving soon. The excavation site is in the next valley.

I looked ahead. The road we had been following veered sharply to the right just then, and crossed the gorge. After skirting briefly around the almost vertical slope, it reached the end of the ridge. In front of us, the terrain fell sharply into the rolling pastures of an enclosed valley, framed in the distance by the next range of mountains, its peaks so high they were lost in the clouds. But as I watched, the sun broke through the clouds hanging over the valley, and spread like fire across the land. And far beyond, out of the mist, as if an invisible hand was drawing them, the peaks came into view, bare walls of stone capped in snow, like the teeth of some gigantic beast tearing at the sky.

I had never been there before, I was certain. This was not my world. I had left my father’s kingdom behind when I crossed to California through the door hidden under the arch that only the full moon opens. But regardless of what my mind would say, I felt in my heart that I knew these mountains, or, more exactly that they knew me, that they were waiting for me––had been waiting for me since a time before my own. I shivered.

You OK, Andrea?

I looked up.

So lost I was in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed John had stopped the car on a mirador, a shoulder of pressed earth surrounded by a fence that overlooked the valley.

I shrugged to get rid of the unnerving feeling and looked ahead. Yes. Sure. I’m fine. 

See down there, John said. It’s the Valley of––

Amieva, I finished for him. The Celtic village is over there. I signaled to the spot beyond a grove of trees where I could almost make out the silver reflection of a stream. Then I turned and pointed behind us to an outcrop of rock further up on the slope of the mountain where we were now. And that’s where the cave is. The cave by which the first Spanish king took his last stand and defeated the Arabs sent to kill his people over a thousand years ago.

John shook his head. No. The place where King Pelayo defeated the Arabs is on the next range of mountains. They built a monastery there. Covadonga it’s called.

Of the two of us, John was the expert. He had just finished his master’s in early medieval Spanish, while I only knew the legends of the times before the Arab invasion I have heard in my world, and the little John had told me back in California. Yet I knew he was wrong. I knew the cave was here in this range. I knew it as I had known the name of the valley, like I knew the way the stream wrapped itself around the village, and how strong the smell of animal fat and smoke was inside the chieftain’s hut. I knew it even though I had no reason to know it at all.

These memories that were not mine unsettled me. Feeling trapped inside the car, I opened the door and stepped outside. My heart was beating so hard my chest was hurting and, for no apparent reason, I was panting. I walked to the end of the mirador and resting my weight on the wooden fence, took a deep breath. The air was thin here up in the mountains and my head felt light. I closed my eyes. Only the rhythmic sound of a bird calling for his mate and the sporadic ringing of a bell broke the still silence of the air.

The gravel cracked behind me. Come on, Andrea. Let’s go. We're almost there. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get to the camp. I’m starving.

Reluctantly tearing my eyes from the valley, I turned to him. Why don’t you go without me? I have had enough car for one day. I want to walk from here.

Come on, Andrea. That makes no sense. You don’t know these mountains. You’ll get lost.

No. I won’t. I’ve seen the encampment in the map. It’s a short distance from the village.

John argued there were no clear paths and the terrain was steep, but I ignored him. Before he could react, I climbed over the fence that enclosed the shoulder and ran up the mountain, winding my way eastward toward the outcrop of rocks I had spotted from the car­­––the place where I was certain to find the cave. John called after me. I took from my pocket the cell phone my uncle had given me and waved it to let him know I would call if I needed help.

He didn’t follow me. Either because knowing I had a phone had reassured him of my safety or because he knew, from his stay in my world the previous year, that I could take care of myself in the wild.

Despite my flippant disregard of John’s protests, I soon realized he did have a point. The climb was harder than I had anticipated. Brambles scratched my bare legs, and a rain of pebbles scattered under my feet, making me lose my footing on innumerable occasions. Though the sun was long past its zenith, even in my shorts and sleeveless shirt soon I was sweating. Yet, in those brief moments the sun hid behind the clouds, the air cooled rapidly, a warning of the cold night ahead. I didn’t need the reminder. I knew that this high in the mountains the night would be cold, even now in the summer, and that I must reach the camp before nightfall.

I wasn’t worried though. I still had time. Enough time to make it to the cave and down to the ruins of the village which I knew were close to the barracks where the excavation team was staying.

I wasn’t worried either about getting lost. I knew these mountains. Not the trees and the bushes and the animal trails I sometimes crossed, but the broader picture. I recognized the shape of the slope I was climbing, the changing outline of the sierra that closed the valley to the north, and the naked wall of white limestone on the peak across the valley when I finally reached the outcrop.

But the place itself––a wide ledge that had been hidden till then behind the rocks ––I didn’t know, and the cave I had expected wasn’t there. Instead a gnarled oak sprung from the face of the mountain and it was under its heavy branches, I saw the tomb for the first time. It jutted out of the earth in the middle of the expanse seeming as much a part of the mountain as the granite stone from which it had been carved.

I hesitated, breathless by the climb, in awe at the majesty the place commanded. It was one of these places where the wind comes to die and the air, forever still, remains warm in the winter and cool in the summer, fragrant with the perfume of early spring. You find them usually deep into the forest in ancient oak groves. And for my people, they are sacred.

I stepped onto the ledge, with the reverence I would upon entering a temple, the rustle of my shoes upon the dry heather the only sound to break the silence. The soil, I realized when I came closer, had been excavated around the tomb that now reached up to my waist. Several scenes had been carved around its sides and on the slab that closed the monument the lying figure of a knight emerged from the stone.

Eyes closed, his hair loose over his shoulders, he was dressed in a tunic that fell to his knees and boots tight against his calves––the way noblemen dress in my world. A king. He was a king I knew, even before I saw the circlet on his forehead and the pommel of the sword he held over his chest. The pommel with three lines entangled in the shape of a mountain. The design of the House of Montemayor. My father’s House

Unconsciously I reached for the clip buried in my hair, an arrow folded in the shape of my House’s emblem, and as I bent to bring it closer to the sword to compare both designs, I touched the king’s fingers with my hand. It was then I saw the ring. The signet with the rising sun of the House of Alvar. I gasped as I realized this was the tomb whose picture John had shown me back in California. The tomb the Spaniards believed was a memorial to Roderic, the last Visigothic King. The tomb we had been discussing when Julián came into the room and found me on John’s bed. I felt my face burning with shame at the memory, and, as the dormant pain inside my chest returned, I closed my eyes.

In the darkness, a voice spoke.

Who are you, stranger? And why would you care to come to this forgotten land to pay your respects to a long dead king?

2. Covadonga

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Andrea

I jumped back and, holding the arrow in front of me, turned towards the unexpected voice. A girl, about my age, with pale blue eyes in a freckled face was staring at me from behind the tomb. Startled by her sudden appearance––How could I not have heard her coming, I who had trained to be a squire––the thought that she might be the ghost of the king carved in the stone did cross my mind. But not for long. Besides the fact that she was obviously a girl, she looked far too alive to be a ghost. Her face was flushed as if she had been running, her clothes––a pair of jeans and a dark sweater­­­­––were wrinkled and dirty and when she pushed a rebel lock of auburn hair back from her eyes the smear she left on her forehead was real.

The surprise must have shown in my face, because the girl suddenly smiled. I didn’t mean to scare you with my formal talk, she said. I was just being obnoxious. Nothing personal. It’s my normal response to strangers. I’m Covadonga, by the way. And you are?

Andrea de Montemaior. Only after I said it, I realized I had told her my real name. The name of the King, my father. Not the maiden name of my mother, my uncle’s name, as he had instructed me to do while I was in his world. But I didn’t correct myself. Somehow Father’s name seemed more appropriate here by the tomb of the king carved in the stone carrying the sword of our House. For Mother, born and raised in California, had no royal blood.

The girl pointed at the clip I was still holding, May I see it?

I nodded and, moving closer, offered it to her.

Where did you get this? she asked, a curious expression in her pale blue eyes.

My father gave it to me when I turned sixteen, I told her truthfully enough. It’s our family’s emblem.

Covadonga laughed. You’re kidding, right? This is Roderic’s emblem. Roderic, you know? As in Roderic the last Visigothic king. It cannot be the emblem of your family.

Her laughter hit me like a slap with its implication that I was lying. My face burning with anger, I returned her stare. It is the emblem of my family, I repeated. And now if you would kindly give it back, I will be leaving.

Covadonga stopped laughing, and handed me the arrow.

Sorry, Andrea, she said studying me with unconcealed disbelief. I didn’t mean to be rude. But according to history, Roderic disappeared over a thousand years ago when his army was defeated by the Arab invaders. And, not that it really matters, but he died without an heir.

According to history. Earth history that would be. According to the stories I had heard growing up, Roderic and what was left of his army had crossed through a door into our world. And yes, my family claimed we were his descendants. But I couldn’t tell her that as any mention of my world was strictly forbidden. The destruction of our less advanced way of life, were Earth to learn of our existence, would be inevitable. I could not betray my world. So I swallowed my anger, and pointed at the figure of the dead king lying still on his bed of stone.

You said Roderic disappeared in battle. But isn’t this his tomb?

Covadonga shrugged. That’s the current theory. But I don’t think so. I may be only a first-year student, but I grew up in these mountains and I know their history and their legends better than anyone. Certainly better than Professor de la Vega and her team. She stopped brusquely and looked at me. You are not one of them, are you?

One of...

One of Professor de la Vega’s minions?

I laughed. No. I’m not one of her minions. At least not yet. I came from California to...

Oh, so you’re the graduate student we were expecting?

No. That would be John. I haven’t started college yet.

Covadonga stared at me openly. From California? I wouldn’t have guessed... I mean, your Spanish is perfect.

I appreciated her compliment. Our language having evolved from the popular Latin Roderic and his men spoke, is related to modern Spanish. In anticipation of my coming to Spain, I had studied the Spanish of this world during the time I had spent in California waiting for Julián to come and apologize to me. Which, of course, he never did.

And you came here how? Covadonga asked. Don’t tell me you walked all the way.

She smiled then and her eyes twinkled with mischief, breaking the tension between us. I smiled back.

Actually we flew to Madrid and drove from there. John did, anyway. But when he stopped at the mirador, I decided to come and see the cave.

The cave? There’s no cave here. She blushed so hard her freckles disappeared while, again, her voice hardened. Who told you anything about a cave?

Nobody. I just... I looked back at the mountain walls that framed the ledge searching for an opening, a discontinuity in the rock that would prove me right. Again, I saw none.

There is no cave, Covadonga repeated. Her flushed face and elusive eyes telling me otherwise. Only a king. A dead king in a stone taunting us with the mystery of a sword.

I knew Covadonga’s mention of the king was her way of steering my attention from the mountains. Yet, unwillingly my eyes returned to the tomb.

The sun was long set by now and, in the twilight of early evening, the shadows had taken away the sharpness of the stone and mellowed the king’s face, giving the impression that he was alive. It was a handsome face, utterly vulnerable and yet strong. A face I could have grown to love.

Who do you think he was if he’s not Roderic? I asked.

Her eyes on the king’s face, Covadonga smiled. I think he was Alfonso, the first king. The brusqueness that had crept into her voice at the mention of the cave was gone now as if she too had fallen under the spell of the king.

The first king. The first leader ever to defeat the Arab invaders. I remembered John had just mentioned him too up in the mirador. But the name was wrong. His name was not Alfonso, I was sure. His name was...

Pelayo, I said. Wasn’t Pelayo, the name of the first king?

Covadonga looked up from the tomb. Pelayo. Always Pelayo. You can’t walk into these mountains without hearing his name. Yes, of course, Pelayo was the first to defeat the Arabs as every school child knows. But Pelayo was not a king. He was merely a chieftain. The Sword Bearer, the old chronicles call him.

I looked at her nonplused. And Alfonso?

Do you really want to know? She seemed delighted at having found herself an audience. Tell you what. Let’s start down and I’ll tell you what I know. It’s more than an hour to the barracks and if we don’t start soon we’re going to miss dinner.

Without waiting for my answer, she turned and, at a brisk pace, started following a track much wider than any I had found before. I guessed, and Covadonga confirmed, the path had been cut recently to give access to the tomb. She also told me proudly she was the one who had discovered the king’s burial. She had found it while hiking, several months past after an earthquake had shaken the mountains. That the History Department had taken over the investigation was a sore wound with her.

They are so narrow-minded, she explained as we walked, they refuse to see anything that doesn’t fit the official history. And there are so may unexplained clues in this tomb they don’t know what to do with them. So they just ignore them.

Which clues?

The ring, for instance.

I gasped. But the noise of the gravel under our feet must have drowned the sound because Covadonga continued, unperturbed. You probably didn’t notice, but the king in the stone is wearing the ring of Witiza. Now, Witiza was king before Roderic. Given that the Visigothic monarchy was not hereditary, and the kings were elected by the warrior class, the fact that Roderic was not from Witiza’s family, would have been normal then. But Witiza and Roderic’s families were mortal enemies, and Witiza’s son resented Roderic’s nomination. Many historians believe, when the Arabs invaded the peninsula, Witiza’s son deserted Roderic in the middle of the battle that ensued, causing Roderic’s defeat and the the fall of the Spanish Visigothic Kingdom. So the idea of King Roderic wearing Witiza’s ring is ridiculous.

Indeed. What would she say, I wondered, if I told her that Julián had offered me that very ring only a week ago when he asked me to marry him. The ring that belonged to his House, for Julián was the rightful heir to Witiza. When Roderic flew to my world, legend said, he had taken with him the son of the old king, as a prisoner and in disgrace. Eventually Witiza’s descendants became kings on their own right and the ring, passed down to the first born son through generations, was Julián’s now.

Julián. I saw him in my mind, his eyes cold, his voice steeled by anger as he had been in John’s room when, taking the ring from my hand, he broke our engagement. I shook my head to stop the tears I refused to shed, and returned my thoughts to the present, to the mystery of the king in stone.

What about him? I asked Covadonga. Why is King Alfonso wearing Witiza’s ring or Roderic’s sword for that matter?

Covadonga shrugged. I don’t know. But I have more data that support my theory. I’ll show you.

She took a sketchbook from her backpack and held it for me to see. These are copies of the four scenes carved around the tomb, she explained as she leafed through the book pointing at her drawings. Two of them tell stories of Alfonso’s conquests as recorded in the chronicles of the times, events that took place many years after Roderic’s death. So, tell me, how could a tomb built in Roderic’s time include them?

You said they were four scenes, what about the other two?

Well, actually, the other two go back to Pelayo’s times. See, this one, for instance, represents Arab soldiers attacking a village. It could be any village, of course, at the time of Alfonso’s reign, except that the man leading the Asturians has a mark on his chest. The same mark this other one has. She was pointing now at the lone figure of a man standing over a rock holding a horn to his lips. "And this second man is definitely Pelayo. I haven’t drawn the rest of the scene yet, but it depicts the mountain slide that buried the Arab troops. And that is, without a doubt, the story of Pelayo’s first victory.

And before you ask, the answer is no. I don’t know why Don Alfonso chose these scenes for his tomb as they happened before his time. But . . .

Her voice fades away as the blare of a horn blowing shakes the mountain. The noise, deafening at first, dies for a moment, and then returns magnified as an echo out of distant walls. Under me, the earth complains with the rumbling noise that precedes a slide. I have to get out, I know, but when I try to get up my legs refuse to hold me and I fall on the hard ground. I look around, and, as my memory fights to come back, the pain returns. I moan and close my eyes reaching for the void that held me before, but the pain biting through my body won’t let me go.

I feel a change in the light and open my eyes. A man is standing by the entrance. He is naked to his waist, and his dark, matted hair falls to his shoulder. I barely have time to notice the scar, like a dark spider crawling over his chest, when the earth growls again and the ground starts shaking. I call his name, and he comes inside and bends over me. In his eyes, black as coal, there is no hope.

Princess, he says and covers my body with his own as the cave collapses.

3. Her Majesty

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Andrea

"Please, please, be all right.¨

I opened my eyes. The girl with the blue eyes was kneeling by my side.

What happened?

Sorry, Andrea. I was too late to catch you, Covadonga told me as she helped me to sit.

Half-dazed by the vivid memory of my dream––Had it been a dream?–– I looked around. I was still on the mountain by the tomb of the king and the cave was gone. And so was Julián.

What happened? I repeated, pushing away the forbidden longing.

Covadonga shrugged. I don’t know. One minute you were looking at the carved stone, the next you were on the floor, totally out.

Ignoring the soaring headache my vision had left, I pushed myself up. But, as I moved, a wave of nausea rose to my mouth, and earth and sky started a frantic dance before my eyes.

Covadonga held me until the dizziness passed, then offered me a bottle.

What is this?

Water. What did you expect? You should always bring some when hiking. There’s no water up here, even though it rains all the time.

I drank slowly, concentrating on the cold feeling running through my body. When I looked up again, the world had stopped moving.

Can you walk? she asked, after returning the bottle to her backpack. We should be getting to the camp. It’ll be dark soon, and trust me, you don’t want to get lost in these mountains at night.

She was trying to sound casual, but I could tell by the way she avoided looking straight at me she was still worried. Did I look as bad as I felt?

Of course, I can walk, I told her. I bet I can walk faster than you.

Covadonga smiled, a welcome change from her taut expression. That I very much doubt, she said. Actually, I’ll be happy if I don’t have to carry you all the way down.

She didn’t have to carry me, but we didn’t run either.

Walking made my body ache as if a cave had really collapsed on me. Covadonga didn’t ask me again if I needed help, she must have sensed how much I hated to be this weak. Instead she stopped regularly, pretending her shoelaces were untied or to get a drink, even though I knew there was no water left.

John had been right, I should have stayed with him for night fell quickly in the mountains and soon it was too dark to see the path ahead. I was glad I had found Covadonga because without a moon to light our way––the moon, the solitary moon of this world, was a week past full and would not rise for many hours––only her flashlight and her knowledge of these mountains, kept us from getting lost.

Finally, as the slope of the mountain leveled into a plateau, she pointed toward the shapeless shadows sitting on a wide expanse ahead of us and cheerfully announced, Welcome to the Castle.

I laughed upon hearing her absurd claim for there was no castle, only three rectangular stone buildings set in the shape of a horseshoe opening toward us. But for a solitary bulb hanging over each door, the first two buildings were in darkness. Through the bright windows of the farthest one, I could make out people sitting around several tables. The clanking of metal and dishes and the welcome smell of food told me it was the cafeteria.

We had barely stepped into the enclosed area when the door to the cafeteria burst open, and in a swirl of chatter and laughter, students poured out.

Covadonga moaned. Great timing. Dinner’s over.

Couldn’t we go in and ask for food?

She shook her head. I’m afraid I’ve done that once too often. But... She looked at me and smiled. Of course, she said, pushing me forward. Come on, Andrea, look your worst. Maybe the cook will feel sorry for you and give us something to eat.

Her arm on mine, she steered me around the groups of young people talking and laughing, quickly waving away any attempts to engage her in conversation. We had almost reached the building when a smartly dressed woman strode out of the building towards us, trailed closely by John. Covadonga swore, and before I could catch John’s attention, she pulled me back into the shadows.

What’s the problem? Why...?

Covadonga shushed me. Keep quiet. The problem is the Queen’s here.

The Queen?

Looking over my shoulder, she swore again. Too late, she said. Here she comes. Then in an urgent whisper, "Don’t mention we met at the king’s