‘Agreed. So we must do something about it.’

‘Yes. But you feel as uncomfortable about this sort of talk as I do, don’t you, Harry?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I’m just a merchant. I sell wool. That’s all I know.’

‘Yes.’ Abdul gazed out of the window, and the dusty evening light caught the planes of his face. ‘And I, I have always been outside the current of the world. I’m happy with that. Happy to observe, not to be involved. I’m content with my role here in the palace. In Granada, I’m trying to resolve problems, Harry. To save people. To restore equilibrium, if you like.’

‘Not to change history.’

‘Indeed. And yet here we are.’

Harry nodded. ‘Where do we start?’

‘We need to find this Dove of yours,’ Abdul said firmly. ‘For, it seems, all of history turns on his decisions. He must be a navigator, a mariner, a captain, or a ship-owner; he must be seeking sponsorship for his western voyages. These navigators all know each other - and are jealous of each other too. I will see if I can track him down.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we will decide what needs to be done to send him on his proper way, off into the Ocean Sea.’ He frowned. ‘It occurs to me - this strange witnessing has fallen into the hands of our family. But families have a way of proliferating. What if there are others, Harry, others out there like you and me, likewise armed with the Testament of Eadgyth - or worse, the Engines of God? And what if one of those other unknown cousins has decided to work the other way - to send the Dove, not west, but east?’

Harry was appalled; that thought hadn’t occurred to him. ‘If so they will be looking for the Dove, as we are,’ he said.

‘True. We must keep our eyes open. And if we encounter them,’ Abdul said calmly, ‘we must deal with them.’ And he pressed his nose to a jasmine petal, as if for comfort.

XI

XI

AD 1485

In the summer of 1485 Grace Bigod, with Friar James in tow, travelled back to Spain. Grace wanted to press her case for the adoption of the Engines of God by the Spanish court.

But the Spanish were at war. This year, Fernando and Isabel were engaged in the siege of a Moorish town the Christians called Ronda.

So James and Grace travelled across the country to Ronda with a raiding party of Castilian soldiers. Moving inland from the coast they crossed a landscape of folded hills and flood plains through which rivers snaked, glistening, and fortified towns sat squat on the hilltops. The scars of the monarchs’ war were everywhere, in the burned-out fields, the hulks of abandoned farmhouses, the stinking carcasses littering the roadsides.