The morning was advancing, and Abdul suggested they descend and return to the city for lunch. Geoffrey glanced once more over the cathedral’s sprawling bulk. Far below he glimpsed a patio with orange trees, a relic of the Moorish origins of this huge church, where a boy sat on a low wall plucking at a guitar, and a girl danced before him, her arms raised, her feet clattering on the ground, her movements sensuous despite the February cold. The music drifted up to him through the rustle of the wind, a liquid sound. But the boy’s song sounded almost like a muezzin’s wail. In this city the Moorish face was only ever poorly disguised by the Christian mask, Geoffrey thought.

He followed Abdul down the ramps, where once the hooves of horses had clattered.

XXI

XXI

The courtroom was a cold stone room in the bowels of the Triana, windowless, its walls smeared with lamp black. Guards stood by the door and at the back of the room. They were beefy soldiers of the Holy Brotherhood, the religious police of Fernando and Isabel.

The panel of inquisitors was led by Diego Ferron himself. Two more clerics sat at either side of him. A pile of papers and books of procedure cluttered the desk before them, and a clerk made continual notes. The Inquisition was nothing if not orderly.

The only observer here was Geoffrey Cotesford, who sat as bravely as he could on a hard wooden chair. The chair had been brought into the room especially for him; Diego Ferron had made it clear that he was not welcome here.

An immense and detailed crucifix hung from one wall. Geoffrey reluctantly studied the image of Christ, whose wounds gaped. He supposed that he was the only one in the room who was aware of the irony of that gruesome sculpture of a victim of torture, suspended in such a place as this.

At last Agnes was produced. She was half dragged into the room by two more heavy-set brothers. She was wearing a grimy, colourless shift, stained brown with old blood, and her hair was matted and filthy. The size of the two soldiers with her was absurd, Geoffrey thought; either of them could have broken her with a single blow. She looked dimly around, at Ferron and his colleagues, and at the crucified Christ. There was a smell of decay about her, of shit and piss and blood. But her shrunken face had an odd, unearthly beauty about it.

And then she turned and looked directly at Geoffrey, and her eyes widened.

Geoffrey forced himself to smile at her, and made a blessing with two fingers. How she must blame him for prising her out of her anchoress’s seclusion!

She dropped her head.

Ferron watched this coldly. Then he nodded to the brothers. ‘Release her.’