Anna Belfrage continues her Coffee Pot Blog Tour with The Castilian Pomegranate (The Castilian Saga, Book 2)

Book Title: The Castilian Pomegranate

Series: (The Castilian Saga, Book 2)

Author: Anna Belfrage

Publication Date: 1st October 2021

Publisher: Timelight Press

Page Length: 400 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance

Follow the Tour: 

The Castilian Pomegranate

(The Castilian Saga, Book 2)

By Anna Belfrage

An enraged and grieving queen commands them to retrieve her exquisite jewel and abandon their foundling brat overseas—or never return.

Robert FitzStephan and his wife, Noor, have been temporarily exiled. Officially, they are to travel to the courts of Aragon and Castile as emissaries of Queen Eleanor of England. Unofficially, the queen demands two things: that they abandon Lionel, their foster son, in foreign lands and that they bring back a precious jewel – the Castilian Pomegranate.

Noor would rather chop off a foot than leave Lionel in a foreign land—especially as he’s been entrusted to her by his dead father, the last true prince of Wales. And as to the jewel, stealing it would mean immediate execution. . . 

Spain in 1285 is a complicated place. France has launched a crusade against Aragon and soon enough Robert is embroiled in the conflict, standing side by side with their Aragonese hosts. 

Once in Castile, it is the fearsome Moors that must be fought, with Robert facing weeks separated from his young wife, a wife who is enthralled by the Castilian court—and a particular Castilian gallant. 

Jealousy, betrayal and a thirst for revenge plunge Noor and Robert into life-threatening danger. 

Will they emerge unscathed or will savage but beautiful Castile leave them permanently scarred and damaged?  

Trigger Warnings: Sexual content, violence

This novel is available on #KindleUnlimited

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An Excerpt from The Castilian Pomegranate

In which Robert meets Nuño Nuñez, a broken hero and a future friend

Robert sighed, his gaze on the stiff shoulders of a man he suspected was being torn apart by guilt. He considered what to do for a while before approaching the unknown Nuño.

“I am Robert FitzStephan,” he said. Nuño swivelled, blank eyes meeting his. “You are to help me with the wounded.” 

A lie, as Robert was not charged with the care of the injured and dying, but the man needed a purpose, and nowhere else would he be kept as busy as among the wounded. There was always water to carry, pallets to move, bodies to bury . . . Robert swallowed, wondering if he’d made the right choice as he walked up the slope towards the tents in which King Pedro’s various physicians were doing what they could to save lives. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nuño following him. A man screamed, and Nuño flinched, halting abruptly. Robert stopped as well, waiting patiently until Nuño began to move again. 

All of the physicians were Muslims. Robert recognised Omar bending over a shrieking youth, had to turn away when Omar set a saw to the youth’s leg. 

“God’s blood,” he muttered. 

“Here to help?” Omar asked, his hands still busy while a young lad wiped his face clean of blood and other matter. 

“Aye. What can we do?”

“Do?” Omar gestured at the pallets, a line of ashen-faced men awaiting their turn under the saw. “You can carry.” He went back to what he was doing. His patient was unconscious, head lolling back as Omar finished the amputation. A mangled calf with an attached foot was thrown into a basket. “And we bury all body parts,” Omar added. “Deeply, so that the dogs don’t get at them.”

From Nuño came something that sounded like a groan. 

They set to work. They lifted men onto Omar’s table, they lifted them off. They hauled the overfull basket outside and dug a deep pit. Nuño did not say a word, but as the hours passed his shoulders dropped, his hitherto stiff spine relaxing. Now and then, Robert said something, but there was no response beyond a glance his way.

They helped hold down a man with limbs and belly swollen into deformity while an unknown physician attempted to drain him of the bilious matter that had him looking verily like a beached whale. “It won’t help,” the physician confided in an undertone over the unconscious form of his patient. “He’s sustained severe injury to his inner organs, and this bloating is inevitable.”

“So why cut him?”

“It eases the pain,” the physician said. “Besides, otherwise the skin ruptures.”

Robert’s gut twisted at the thought.

In one tent were men with burns. Nuño took one look, turned on his toes and fled. Robert sighed, following his charge into the next tent, where men bereft of feet or hands or legs lay staring at nothing. 

“In some cases, it would have been more merciful to slash their throats,” Robert muttered to Nuño as they exited. He received a curt nod in reply.

Well after midday, they sat in the shade and shared a pitcher of weak wine to wash down a meal consisting of bread, dried figs and a slice of crumbling sheep’s cheese. 

Some distance away, dead men were lowered into a communal grave, a friar with flapping robes making the sign of cross. Nuño’s eyes narrowed, a hand rubbing over his chest. He opened his mouth, and there was a moment when Robert thought the man was about to speak, but instead Nuño lurched to his feet and set off down the slope, towards the vantage point where he’d been standing earlier.

Robert caught up with him but chose to say nothing. Nuño crossed his arms over his chest and looked north, the fabric of the tunic he was wearing straining over his shoulders. The sun might be warm, but this high up, the wind had an icy edge, and Robert shivered. 

For a while, he lost himself in the contemplation of the sky, of clouds like fluffs of wool drifting by. It made him think of Noor. He flexed his injured hand a couple of times, smiling at the images of his wife, naked but for the swirling cloud of dark hair. He adjusted his braies: too many weeks without her, too many nights dreaming of her. 

Beside him, Nuño shifted on his feet and lifted his face to the sun. 

“My people were never buried,” he said, his voice hoarse with disuse. He laughed bitterly. “A house of the Lord became their tomb.” He closed his eyes. “It burned. They rounded them up and forced them into the cathedral before setting it on fire, and the sounds . . .” He rocked from side to side, hands pressed to his ears. “They made me watch,” he continued. “They held me and forced me to hear them scream, hear their pleas for mercy. And when the roof gave—” He shuddered and crossed himself. “A wail, a sound so terrible it tore my soul apart, and then there was silence.” 

“They have paid for their sins,” Robert said.

“Paid? How can you pay for letting infants, children and women die like that? A curse on the French, a curse on Philippe and his sons, but most of all a curse on that accursed Jaume, betrayer of his people and his brother.” He held out his shaking hands, covered in healed burns. “I wrested lose. I tried to get at them, but it was too late, and there was nothing to find, no one to save.” He groaned. “My woman. Our son.” He turned to face the north again. “I just want to die,” he added softly, his voice cracking.

Robert had no notion what to say, so he stood in silence beside the equally silent Nuño. Daylight waned, and still they stood there until at long last Nuño looked at him. “God will have welcomed them into His heaven,” he said, and there was an entreaty in his gaze, a wobble to his voice. 

“Of course,” Robert replied. “Innocents butchered before the image of God rise like angels towards Him.”

Nuño nodded. “Like angels,” he repeated, looking at the darkening sky. “But I want them here with me,” he added so softly Robert could scarcely hear him. 

A life without Noor, without Isabel, Lionel—a life not worth living. Robert drew the grieving man into his arms, holding him as he broke apart, grief and anger and fear spilling forth in a mixture of curses, names and tears. 

“Will you go back?” Robert asked once Nuño had regained his composure.

“Never.” Nuño set off down the slope. “I will spend the rest of my life exacting revenge.”

“Such things are best left to God,” Robert said.

“Assuredly. But sometimes, man must take things in his own hands.” With that, Nuño strode off.

***

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series The Graham Saga, set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in 14th century England.  

Anna has also published The Wanderer, a fast-paced contemporary romantic suspense trilogy with paranormal and time-slip ingredients. 

The Castilian Pomegranate is the second in her “Castilian” series, a stand-alone sequel to her September 2020 release, His Castilian Hawk. Set against the complications of Edward I’s invasion of Wales, His Castilian Hawk is a story of loyalty, integrity—and love. In The Castilian Pomegranate, we travel with the protagonists to the complex political world of medieval Spain, a world of intrigue and back-stabbing.

Her most recent release prior to The Castilian Pomegranate is The Whirlpools of Time in which she returns to the world of time travel. Join Duncan and the somewhat reluctant time-traveller Erin on their adventures through the Scottish Highlands just as the first Jacobite rebellion is about to explode! 

All of Anna’s books have been awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion, she has several Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choices, and one of her books won the HNS Indie Award in 2015. She is also the proud recipient of various Reader’s Favorite medals as well as having won various Gold, Silver and Bronze Coffee Pot Book Club awards.

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