Ferron pointed out one Dominican, a tall, pale figure with a flattened nose, like a boxer’s. ‘Torquemada,’ he murmured. ‘Your first contact, madam. Not yet an Inquisitor, actually, but his soul yearns for the good work. Ferociously pious and yet a master of organisation. Perhaps every cleansing needs a cool mind like his!’

The leader of the Dominicans stepped forward, and began to deliver a sermon in windy Spanish, laden with quotations from Revelation.

Ferron whispered to Grace, ‘He is Friar Alonzo de Ojeda, of the Monastery of San Pablo. He led the commission which established the Inquisition in the first place, to root out weakness and treachery in our new state. For connoisseurs of apocalyptic preaching, his sermons are collectors’ items,’ he said. ‘But this is a moment for which he has campaigned all his adult life.’

A portly, intense man, Ojeda was alight with joy in this killing place, James thought. And if James was watching Ojeda, so, he found, Ferron was watching him.

‘I wonder what you are thinking, young brother. Your expression is complicated. Are you concerned that the innocent may be wrongly condemned? It is possible; we are human. But remember the words of the Pope’s legate at the time of the Albigensian heresy: “Slay all. God will know His own.”’

‘That would be small comfort were I at the stake today.’

‘True, but you aren’t at the stake, are you? I’ve known your type before. You are too intelligent to be truly pious. What do you think of us? What do you think of me?’

James decided to answer honestly. ‘I think you are a man of affairs,’ he said. ‘Of business. Of this world, more than the next. You see this Inquisition as a way for you to achieve your goals, and for your monarchs to build a strong and unified state.’

Ferron’s head swivelled, sleek. He said to Grace, ‘Your adviser has a mind of his own, I see.’

Grace sneered at James, effortlessly crushing him; he looked away. ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ she said. ‘He’s one of the brightest of his generation, so his abbot assured me. And he’s an expert on the Engines of God. But he shows an unruly independence of thought.’

‘Have you always been “unruly”, boy?’

‘My father is a farmer,’ James admitted. ‘We were not rich. As I grew he passed me into the care of the Franciscans. He said I was too intelligent to be of any use behind the plough.’