The Horse Healer (55 page)

“I will try to convince them, Your Majesty. We will help you, but afterward, leave us to our will …”

To reach Calatrava, they had to cross the Guadiana River. There they suffered the first setback of the journey. The Saracens had spread thousands of spikes that penetrated the horse's hooves as soon as they'd stepped into the water.

Diego took one of the objects in his hand, shocked by the wickedness that could come up with such an invention. It was a piece of iron in a pyramidal shape with sharpened points that would enter the foot of a man or an animal that stepped on them.

A dozen watchmen and explorers reconnoitered a broad stretch of the river and picked up as many as they could find, opening a secure pass for the troops. That took some time, and the Ultramontanes used it to complain about the hot midday sun and the lack of food.

A few hours later, they reached the outskirts of the fortress of Calatrava, alarmed at the new defenses that had been put up. There was a thick new wall around it, lined with embrasures and reinforced gates. It was also surrounded by a much deeper moat than the previous one that covered the entire perimeter save one section that bordered the river, where a steep hillside provided scant and difficult access.

Along the walls there could be seen many armed men and a hundred Andalusian knights ready to defend the castle to the death.

Don Álvaro Núñez de Lara approached to speak with the two kings.

“If we come together to plan, we can figure out how to lay siege to it. We know that Abulhachah Ibn Qadis is the head of defenses; he's a famous Andalusian knight, born in Cádiz, and has the reputation of being a great warrior.”

“It seems impossible,” Pedro of Aragon commented. “We need catapults that we don't have and heavy bores to penetrate the walls.”

“We will pitch our tents at a distance,” the Castilian monarch decided. “Advise the other ensigns, leaders, and village lords who have come with their militias. We will discuss what strategy to follow. And send spies to the south. We have to know what our enemy is up to. And make one of them that albéitar Diego. I want to know his thoughts.”

Twenty leagues or so to the north, a beautiful woman disguised as a man had stopped a moment at a well to cool off and water her horse.

Three days before, she had left the castle of Zorita de los Canes behind her, learning that Bruno de Oñate had left to wage war against Caliph al-Nasir. They explained to her that the Calatravan had left two weeks before, joining a hundred other knights.

Unfortunately, those she asked swore to know nothing of the Diego de Malagón she was looking for. Without losing hope, she decided to go in search of that group of warriors, convinced that finding Bruno would lead her to Diego.

She pulled on the cord and with a great deal of strength managed to pull up a wooden bucket full of fresh water. First, she let her horse drink, and while it did, she looked around cautiously. She was close to a ramshackle farmhouse and had made sure no one lived there. She took off her hat and delighted in the feeling of the cool breeze blowing through her hair. It was fearfully hot that day.

She lowered the bucket into the well again until she heard it splash against the water. She pulled it up again and leaned it on the well's edge. She untied the cord of her tunic and rolled it up to cool off a bit.

A noise behind her alarmed her, but when she turned, there was no one there. But for some time a man behind one of the farmhouse walls had been watching her. When he was passing by, he thought he heard someone wandering around there, and out of curiosity, he looked to see who it was. He was even more surprised to see it was a woman dressed as a man and to see the beautiful shape of her body beneath her clothes. The solitude of the place made him begin to dream of having her. It was so long since he'd been with a woman.

Mencía decided to soak her tunic with the idea of traveling more coolly that way, and she took it off, standing there in her underwear. Behind her, a filthy and rustic-looking man approached without making a noise. Unworried, Mencía dunked her head in the bucket, immediately relieved by the cooling waters. But when she took it out, she heard a twig snap, and she turned to see what was happening. Before she would react, she felt hands clutching her shoulders. Terrified, she tried to escape, and since the man's face was the first thing she saw, she clawed at it with fury.

“Filthy whore!” the man responded, feeling her nails close to his eyes. He struck her so forcefully that he split her lip and without looking, he put his hands around her neck and pulled her to the ground.

Mencía twisted, feeling herself choked, and kicked him, hoping to get away. But the man was too strong, he sat on her stomach and with one hand, he held her wrists to the ground.

“If you don't quiet down, I'll kill you here and now.”

“Bastard … let me go now!” She scratched one of his arms. “I'm not alone,” she lied. “My companions will kill you.”

He smiled cynically.

“Just thinking about it makes me shiver.”

He tried to kiss her lips but he wasn't quick enough, and she bit him on the cheek. He hit her again and opened a cut on her chin.

“Be quiet now.”

Those rough hands moved toward her breasts and squeezed them. Mencía screamed with all her heart to attract help, but when she looked back at the man, she lost all hope. She could do nothing to him, and no one would come to her aid.

She remembered Marcos and his advice. He had told her to travel with a caravan to avoid danger, but now it was too late. She rolled around, crying tears of rage, shrieking, full of fear, but managed to do nothing more than provoke another punch to the nose.

“Let her go now!” The tip of a sword threatened the aggressor's back.

Mencía knocked him off her and looked at who was speaking. Two armed knights stared back at her.

“We heard you screaming and came to your aid, my lady.” In spite of her strange dress, Mencía couldn't hide her noble roots.

“Thank God. …” She stood up and ran to protect herself behind their backs.

“It's not what you think,” the aggressor justified himself. “The woman provoked me and …”

“He's lying!” she shouted, enraged.

“You're lucky we don't have time to take you before the court,” one answered. “You deserve to die right here, but we can't delay now. Listen to what we say and get out of here now, before we change our minds.”

The man obeyed without hesitation, running without looking back, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.

“And you, señora, where are you going in that disguise?”

“To the war …” she answered firmly, not realizing the effects of her words. They burst into laughter.

“It's clear you're not a commoner. You should speak with our lord. Follow us … Oh, and I beg your pardon. My name is Iñigo de Zuñiga.”

Mencía arranged her clothes, hid her hair again beneath her hat, and mounted her mare to follow them.

Half a mile from the river, they arrived at a makeshift camp where they found no fewer than five hundred knights with their pages and squires around a tent bearing the arms of Navarre.

Mencía was taken to the opening where various of the men were talking. Two of them she recognized immediately. As soon as she dismounted, she loosed her beautiful blond hair to the astonishment of all present.

“Forgive me, señora, but I believe I know you …” It was Gómez Garceiz, the ensign to the Navarrese king, whom she met in Olite after Diego was injured.

“And I know you,” she smiled.

“Mencía Fernández de Azagra … correct?”

She nodded her head and bowed respectfully to the king, who was the second person she had recognized.

“A Fernández de Azagra …” The voice of the gigantic monarch resounded like an echo in a quarry. “A daughter of my lands, then, just like the rest of your family. …” He saw her split lip and the wound on her chin. “What happened to you?”

She explained without entering into details and told them why she had undertaken such a risky trip.

“I apologize, señora, I do not wish to be vulgar,” Gómez Garceiz interrupted, “but it seems unbelievable to me that a noblewoman like yourself would want to be present for such a bloody scene. What is your motivation?”

“I am looking for Diego de Malagón.”

Gómez Garceiz arched his brows, remembering that name.

“You already were doing so years back, in Olite. I remember it well. Is there something you need from him?”

“I need to tell him that I love him. …” Her marvelous blue eyes became moist as she declared her love publicly. “And I am ready to risk everything to do so: my life, my honor, whatever it takes. I will fight anyone who stands in my way, and I will travel over half the world to make him know what I feel for him.”

The men admired her passionate declaration, and far from considering it a joke, they envied the recipient of that grand love she felt.

“Come with us, Mencía,” Gómez Garceiz said, kissing her hand with deep and sincere respect. “From now on, you will be protected until we reach the front. Once there, you will look for your love; and we, for war and hardship.”

VII.

T
he troops of the Aragonese king and a group of Templars and Ultramontanes reached the castle of Calatrava at its eastern face, the one nearest the river, and took control of two of its thirty towers.

Shortly after, to the surprise of all, the governor Ibn Qadis signaled his surrender of the fortress. Alfonso VIII accepted, although that decision provoked the ire of the Ultramontanes. In accordance with the pact the man from Cádiz had offered, the fortress would be passed over to the king's hands without the need for a fight. The conditions of his generous offer were that the lives of the occupants be respected: half the defenders would leave on horseback and the other half could be enslaved by the Christians.

“My lord, we can't allow it,” Archbishop Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada said, criticizing the king's agreement with reference to the motivations of the church. He reminded him as well of the possible response of the foreigners.

“Rodrigo, wait and listen to me.” Alfonso stretched out his hand, asking for silence. “I still don't understand how they've given up so soon, without any resistance to speak of, but it's happened. We've only conquered two of the thirty towers so far. If we'd had to fight for each one, we would have needed no less than a week, and we could have lost many men. And imagine if, in the midst of it, al-Nasir had attacked us from the rear.” The archbishop nodded his head, realizing the truth of what the king was saying. “We also have to think about the supply problems we're having, which have gotten worse since we left Toledo. This fortress boasts abundant provisions. That alone makes it worth it, and it might help placate tensions with the Ultramontanes.”

From the first day of July, the flags of Castile and Aragon flew over the fabulous fortress, alongside that of Calatrava, the beneficiaries of that enormous walled city.

The success of that conquest encouraged many of the Spaniards, but it disappointed the Ultramontanes, who had not had the chance to slay the infidels, something that was incomprehensible to them. Once more, they could not respect the decision. That and the unbearable heat of the following days combined with their increasingly violent arguments with the Castilians and the Aragonese led to a great number of wounded on both sides and the foreigners' desire to abandon the enterprise definitively. If they couldn't kill the Moors and avenge the blood spilled by their brothers who had died defending Jerusalem, it wasn't worth carrying on. They weren't just there to enrich Castile with the capture of fortresses and castles. For that reason, on the third of July, they met with Alfonso VIII and announced their irrevocable decision to return to their countries.

A total of two thousand knights and nearly six thousand pages headed north that same day to the surprise and disgust of the rest of the crusaders. Only the archbishop of Narbonne, Arnault Amalric, a native of the Catalan territories, decided to stay with a hundred and thirty knights from regions of Valence and Vienne.

The next day, Alfonso VIII headed toward Alarcos with his men and a portion of the Aragonese troops. The remainder waited with Pedro II in Calatrava for the arrival of Sancho VII with his group of Catalan knights.

When they went, they crossed paths with the spies who had been sent to the south, Diego de Malagón among them.

Don Álvaro Núñez de Lara was the first to hear the news of al-Nasir's plans, and he asked Diego and two others to come with him to communicate them to the king.

“According to the route the caliph has taken, we believe that he will reach the south end of the Muradal Pass on the fourteenth of this month, Your Majesty,” one of the spies said, basing his guess on the size of the army, the difficulty of the terrain, and the distance still to go.

“We were also able to capture one of their spies attempting to send a message to our troops from the caliph. We suspect he may have managed to infiltrate our forces already, Your Majesty,” Diego interrupted.

“And what was this message about?” Don Álvaro asked.

“He promised to give a thousand
maravedíes
to anyone who would desert the Christian army and join with him.”

The three Castilians were stunned by the enormous quantity of money that would imply.

“We're lucky the Ultramontanes didn't hear about this offer,” the archbishop declared.

“We found out something more, which in this case might be more important for our interests,” the third man added. “It seems that, after you set the governor Ibn Qadis free, the caliph, infuriated at the loss of Calatrava, had him executed in public, accusing him of treachery, desertion, and cowardice.”

“Excellent news!” the king affirmed. “What I still don't understand is how you managed to get this information from the spy …”

“It may be better if we don't go into details, but you may want to know what the last thing he said to us was before he set off on his journey to heaven. …”

“What do you mean?” King Alfonso began to feel nervous and harried. He preferred them to speak more directly.

“It seems the Andalusian troops thought of Ibn Qadis as a hero,” Diego responded. “When al-Nasir had him beheaded in their presence, he didn't count on the rejection he would suffer from those men, and they have sworn they'll make him pay. It seems it's not the first time al-Nasir has insulted the Andalusians, often simply because they were born on Iberian lands and not in the noble Atlas Mountains.”

While he listened, the king thought of a plan.

“The desertion of the Ultramontanes has been a blow to our troops' morale. Many think that the spirit of the Holy Crusade has departed with them, and now they feel it's just another battle, one of the many that have sparked off between Christians and Muslims. With fewer troops, the success of our campaign has been compromised, but I see that a new opportunity has opened up, as long as we are able to take advantage of it.” He turned to the three spies. “I have to ask for your help again, though this time it may be riskier. …”

The king explained his plan and asked Don Álvaro to take care of the preparations before Bruno de Oñate took over the mission as head of the Calatravans' espionage. Then he called for no fewer than fifty knights to accompany them.

Diego felt discomfited by the news. Since they had spoken in the castle of Zorita de los Canes, he and Oñate hadn't met again. It was a bad memory, being pushed out of the Calatravans by Bruno, though Diego couldn't forget that he was only alive thanks to him. Diego had more reasons to thank him than reproach him, but still, the idea of sharing a mission wasn't a pleasant one.

“While you are getting close to al-Nasir, we will go to Alarcos,” the king continued. “I have a great debt to pay off there, and the other kings are to meet me there as well.”

“Your Majesty … We have one more thing to say; the size of his army …” A Sorian with a gaunt face was speaking, looking at the ground daunted and almost ashamed.

“Yes!” the king exclaimed. “I know they left Seville two days after us, the twenty-second of June, but I don't know how many there were.”

They looked at one another, trying to decide who would speak. Both Don Álvaro and the king pressed them to get on with it.

“Between seventy and eighty thousand …”

“Good God … That is incredible,” Don Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada said, looking at the monarch's face, but not finding the slightest sign of worry.

“Prepare the mission I have just charged you with. The three of you speak Arabic, yes?”

“Diego is the one who does best,” the other two assured him. Alfonso VIII stared at him from his deep eyes.

“Diego de Malagón …” His air turned solemn. “Again you bear a great responsibility on your shoulders. I trust in your commitment and your bravery, and I expect a success equal to the one you brought us before. The outcome of the battle could depend on your skill here.”

“I promise it, Your Majesty,” Diego affirmed resolutely.

Even if he would have to share his fate with Bruno de Oñate, whom he still had his doubts about, he was proud to take part in an action that would help to put an end to the Almohads' ambitions.

King Alfonso captured Alarcos the next day without great difficulty. It seemed that word of what had happened in Malagón and the later surrender of Calatrava had spread through the Saracen ranks and that, from fear, they were giving in quickly.

From there, the royal army moved on to Salvatierra, that emblematic post whose loss had provoked such pain in the Christian world that it was compared with the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Saladin.

Unlike the previous fortresses, this one was well defended and the difficulties of laying siege seemed impossible to overcome.

The Castilian king decided to camp nearby and await the arrival of the allied monarchs. Together they would decide what to do, attack or continue on.

The Aragonese troops, together with five hundred Navarrese knights led by King Sancho, arrived at Salvatierra on the eighth of July. Alfonso VIII greeted Sancho like a brother, proud to have him there, and immediately organized a meeting to be attended by the royal ensigns. In one tent there were six men who together represented the better part of the territories of Visigoth Hispania.

The meeting didn't go on long before they all came to the same conclusion: they would leave the sack of the fortress for later, knowing that al-Nasir was only six leagues away, on the other side of the sierra.

In the meanwhile, the Christian camp was filled with tension and anxiety; some readied themselves to attack Salvatierra while others sharpened their lances and swords and repaired the suits of armor that had been damaged in the previous clash. Among them, a blond woman, of noble aspect and forlorn face, tried to find Don Álvaro Núñez de Lara to figure out what he knew about Diego de Malagón.

“He just left the king's tent a second ago,” a solider said, pointing to where the meeting had just been held. “He'll probably be in that one over there now.”

Mencía didn't understand why she'd had such bad luck since her departure from Burgos. When she arrived at Calatrava, the Castilians had left for Alarcos not long before, and with them the knights led by Bruno de Oñate. After that, in Alarcos, she also found they had left, that time heading for the fortress of Salvatierra, and now that she was there, no one could tell her where Bruno was, let alone Diego.

“Mencía?” Don Álvaro doubted whether the woman he found outside his tent could possibly be who he thought she was. Her hair was shorter and she looked different from how he remembered. “Can you tell me what you're doing here?”

“I'm looking for Diego.” She answered without mincing words. “Do you know where he is …? I never believed in your letter.”

Don Álvaro held his silence while he tried to decide what to tell her. The surprise of seeing her there, her hope-filled face, and the fact that he had lied to her in that letter pained him greatly. She wanted to know the truth, but if he explained it without being careful, it could be a terrible blow to her.

“I didn't know you had lost your husband, I'm sorry. I found out from others.” Don Álvaro tried to buy a little time.

“It was three years ago. He suffered a fatal accident and died as a consequence. It was very sad. But, Álvaro, don't avoid my real reason for coming here to speak with you.” She grabbed him by the wrists and looked at him, letting him know she would not accept any further evasiveness.

“I suppose there were many other things you should have explained in that letter …”

“It may be. … At the moment, though, I don't consider it necessary; my only goal is to find the love of my life, Diego. I've traveled from Burgos and faced all types of dangers to arrive here today. I followed the trail of a Calatravan, Bruno de Oñate, all the way to this encampment. Álvaro …” She looked into his eyes. “I've risked a great deal and I believe I've suffered enough along the way. No one seems to know anything about him. And believe me, I've asked everyone. I don't understand; I've looked in the stables, in the tents, and no one seems to have seen him. I don't know what else to do.” Desperate tears filled her eyes. “Inside, I know he's alive, but nobody gives me any reason to go on believing it. Please, speak to me, don't hold back what you have to say.”

“All right … at the time I deceived you when I told you Diego was dead. I did it to protect you, and with your interests at heart, because no one had told me about what happened to Fabián.” Mencía's face lit up when her suspicions were confirmed. “Diego was very lucky to land in jail with the Calatravan you're following, Bruno de Oñate, who saved him from the gallows and then brought him here.” He pointed to the magnificent outline of Salvatierra. “He sheltered him here, taking advantage of its remote location and its independence. At that time, we were looking for a man with his abilities, and we knew this was the best place to keep him safe from the courts.”

Don Álvaro told her another detail or two about Diego's activities in those years and finished by informing her that he had departed the encampment the day before to carry out a delicate mission.

“What could be more delicate than this war?” she asked him, full of anxiety.

Don Álvaro looked around, asked her to lower her voice, and invited her into his tent.

“I can't tell you. His mission may be decisive for all of us. Don't treat my discretion like a lack of confidence in you. We've learned that al-Nasir has placed spies among our troops. Do you understand? If by some indiscretion our plans reached his ears, he would kill Diego with his own hands. I have to keep his safety in mind.”

“From what I've just heard, I presume you're trying to infiltrate the Saracens.” Mencía brought her hand to her mouth, terrified, and her eyes filled with tears. So many years searching for him, so much effort to be with him, and now the risk of losing him was greater than ever. Overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation, she could no longer hold out, and she cried in Álvaro's arms.