Stormbringers
Also by Philippa Gregory
The Order of Darkness Series
Changeling
The Tudor Court Novels
The Constant Princess
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Boleyn Inheritance
The Queen’s Fool
The Virgin’s Lover
The Other Queen
The Cousin’s War Series
Lady of the Rivers
The White Queen
The Red Queen
The Kingmaker’s Daughter
The Wideacre Trilogy
Wideacre
The Favoured Child
Meridon
Historical Novels
The Wise Woman
Fallen Skies
A Respectable Trade
Earthly Joys
Virgin Earth
Modern Novels
Alice Hartley’s Happiness
Perfectly Correct
The Little House
Zelda’s Cut
Short Stories
Bread and Chocolate
Non Fiction
The Women of the Cousins’ War
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2013 by Philippa Gregory
Map of Mediterranean Sea used on endpapers from world map by Camaldolese monk Fra Mauro, 1449. Detail © DEA / F. FERRUZZI / Getty Images
Journey map, abbey plan and chapterhead illustrations © Fred van Deelen, 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Philippa Gregory to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library.
HB ISBN: 978-0-85707-734-9
E-BOOK ISBN: 978-0-85707-737-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
CONTENTS
THE ROAD FROM ROME TO PESCARA, ITALY, NOVEMBER 1453
PICCOLO, ITALY, NOVEMBER 1453
THE ROAD FROM ROME TO PESCARA, ITALY, NOVEMBER 1453
The five travellers on horseback on the rutted track to Pescara made everyone turn and stare: the woman who brought them weak ale in a roadside inn; the peasant building a hewn stone wall by the side of the road; the boy trailing home from school to work in his father’s vineyard. Everyone smiled at the radiance of the couple at the front of the little cavalcade, for they were beautiful, young, and – as anyone could see – falling in love.
‘But where’s it all going to end, d’you think?’ Freize asked Ishraq, nodding ahead to Luca and Isolde as they rode along the ruler-straight track that ran due east towards the Adriatic coast.
It was golden autumn weather and, though the deeply scored ruts in the dirt road would be impassable in wintertime, the going was good for now, the horses were strong and they were setting a fair pace to the coast.