Now the penitents were given one final choice. If they made a full admission of guilt, repented their sins, and converted to the faith of Christ, they would be spared the fire through prior strangulation. All but one man submitted, and knelt before the Inquisitors, who brought out their ropes.

It astonished James how hard it was, even for these practised killers, to crush the life out of a human being; it was long minutes before the last of them succumbed.

When the others slumped lifeless at their posts, the last man was to be burned. A citizen came forward with a brand to light the pyre. He had been promised indulgences for this holy deed. He looked fearful; the brand quivered in his hand.

Ferron, coldly excited, murmured to Grace, 'Look at the faces of the crowd. Look at their pious horror! It all creates an atmosphere. You know, the whole court buzzes with talk of the Anti-Christ, who will be born in Seville.'

Grace said, 'All Europe talks of it. I told you, Christendom resounds to news of the victories in Spain. Perhaps, they say, the King is the Hidden One, he who will defeat the Anti-Christ, and smash Islam, and win Jerusalem.'

'Yes. And perhaps Isabel is the Apocalyptic Woman. Perhaps Isabel and Fernando have been sent to cleanse the world in preparation for the Day of Judgement… Such things are murmured by the court prelates in the ears of the monarchs. And yet, at moments like these, how plausible they seem.'

James was appalled by such near-blasphemous flattery. But he dared say nothing.

Now the flames were licking around the feet of the one surviving penitent. He bore it as long as he could without flinching, but at last the screams were forced out of him, and the mob roared in response.

The great port of Malaga was the Moors' second city. The city, founded on a huge double fortress that spanned two hills, was built for warfare. And yet ships of many nations clustered in the harbour, including traders from the Christian kingdoms of Spain.

From the deck of his own vessel Harry's pulse quickened as he watched the ships scud to and fro, their sails billowing. This was a place bursting with deals to be done. Perhaps he would be able at least to turn a profit on the trip, once he was done with the murky business that had drawn him here.

It was already three years since Geoffrey Cotesford had reunited him with his sister Agnes, three years spent mainly on patient research by Geoffrey into Harry's family's complicated background – and their scraps of prophecy, principally the Testament of Eadgyth. Harry had been able to get on with his own life, tucking the strange affair away in a corner of his mind. But now that had changed. Geoffrey had unearthed a family of cousins in al-Andalus itself, which was the very eye of the storm the Dove was prophesied to unleash – or so Geoffrey argued from his interpretation of the Testament. Harry had reluctantly agreed to put his own affairs on hold and to come here to resolve this odd business one way or another.

Malaga's harbour was wide but not enclosed, and unprotected from the sea and wind; though the Mediterranean was tideless the landing was choppy. But Harry was a hardened sailor by now, and the turbulent sea did not trouble him.

Once he had disembarked, Harry hired a muleteer and set off for Granada itself.

The country through which he was led was quite unlike any part of England he had seen. Lumpy volcanic hills rippled down to the coast, and black-winged gulls swooped over broken sheets of dark rock that angled out of the ground. It seemed a place of huge rocky violence to Harry. He made notes of his impressions to pass on to Geoffrey Cotesford.

The journey was not long, requiring one overnight stop. Harry found a tavern whose keepers accepted his English coins. The muleteer, a small, swarthy Moor, slept with his animals on a blanket under the stars.

The next day they had to cross the mountain range the Christians called the Sierra Nevada. The muleteer led him through an easy pass without much climbing, and they moved in silence broken only by the complaining snorts of the mules and the soft clank of their bells. Harry looked down over green valleys where farms nestled, replete with figs, oranges and apples, and on the ridges fortresses and watchtowers bristled like the nests of huge birds. On the peaks, even on this bright spring morning, ice gleamed brilliant white. Every element of this landscape reminded Harry he was very far from home. He glimpsed eagles soaring silently.

By evening they were approaching Granada itself. The city's cupolas, towers, gilded domes and tiled roofs rose up out of a sea of green fields that seemed to wash right up to the city walls. The Moors, he was told, took pride in the intensive farming of their land – it was a deliberate contrast to the sheep-strewn wasteland that was all the Christians could make of the country they had conquered. In the city itself he made out the dome of the great mosque, and saw how the suqs clustered around it. And at the very heart of the city was the al-qala'at al-hamra, the 'red palace', the complex the Christians called the Alhambra. Long and narrow, sprawling over a hill that dominated the city beneath, it was almost like a great stone ship, Harry thought, its walls a sandstone hull, sailing endlessly through the city it dominated and protected.

Harry had a letter of passage written out in Arabic and Latin. He was here to find his remote cousin, Abdul Ibn Ibrahim, who was on the staff of a vizier, an adviser to the emir. So he was allowed by surly guards to pass through an elaborately arched gateway and into the Alhambra itself, where a slim, young, nervous-looking official in a turban escorted him. He used broken Latin.

The people wore loose robes of white or pale colours, and elaborate turbans glistening with jewellery. The children had quick feet and flashing eyes. He saw groups of men engaged in negotiations in the shade of orange trees, or walking briskly from one building to another. There was a certain urgency here, he thought. The Christians were on the march; war was not far away.

And he passed a gaggle of young men who walked with a swagger, giggling. Their faces were painted brightly, and their hair was dyed. Harry had heard Christian rumours of the decadence of the court at Granada. A bachelor himself, he made no judgements on what he saw.

This was more than a palace, Harry quickly realised. It was a city within a city, surrounded by an oval of walls perhaps eight hundred paces long by two hundred wide. At its western extremity was the oldest part of the complex, a massive and brooding fortress cut from pale red sandstone – a fort without a moat, for to the Moors water was too precious to waste on mere defence. On the Alhambra's northern wall was a beautiful, oddly delicate palace complex. And to the east was a miniature township, the administrative heart of what was left of al-Andalus, a working community with dwellings, offices, stables, mosques and schools. The gardens were spectacular, lined with the intense green of cypress trees, brilliant with the crimson blossoms of pomegranates, and crowded with roses. Small birds sang everywhere; this island of greenery was a haven for them in a land that was more fit for the buzzards. The air, though, was hot, dense and arid, and Harry found he had to breathe through his nose, or his mouth dried quickly.

Led by his escort, brandishing his safe-conduct from Abdul, he was taken into the palace buildings. He was hurried past rooms full of light and colour, with arabesque mouldings and gold ornamentation, and moulded spires like stalactites suspended from the ceilings. One quite remarkable courtyard had as its centrepiece an alabaster fountain guarded by stone lions; it was surrounded by slim white pillars that supported arcades of open filigree. The architecture here lacked the brutal ordered simplicity of a Norman castle, say. This was a fluid place, airy, light-filled, so delicate Harry could almost imagine its rooms and arches and patios could be picked up by the wind like thistledown.