The Island of Lost Horses by Gregg Stacy

Author:Gregg, Stacy [Gregg, Stacy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-08-20T07:00:00+00:00

F.M.

19th September, 1493

My mother’s death had kept me from my duties at court. I knew that Princess Joanna would be upset, but surely when she discovered the reason for my absence there would be no need to apologise. Together we could go to the Queen and I could ask her to help me find my father.

Joanna was not in her chambers and so I made my way directly to the grand hall of the Alhambra. There was music playing and voices and laughter inside, but all of it stopped as I walked in.

Ladies turned to face the wall as if the mere act of looking at me would somehow infect them with plague. At least I had thought that it was the plague that they shied away from. I realised later that I was wrong.

The Queen was not present and Joanna was at the far end of the hall, talking with some of the courtiers. I ran to her, feeling hot tears prick my eyes. I was expecting her to embrace me as she always did, but she held herself stiffly. I felt so embarrassed to be denied her affection that I dropped to my knee in a clumsy curtsey instead.

“Dearest Joanna,” I said, “I have come to ask your help. I have been away from court because my mother was sick with plague. I watched her die and fled in grief, and now I have just returned home in great distress only to find my father missing…”

I had known Joanna all my life. Since I was old enough to talk we had shared our secrets and our dreams with each other. She was like a sister to me. And until that moment, I had thought I meant the same to her, but when I lifted my face to hers I saw – nothing. No tears, no emotion. No sweetness and no sympathy.

“Felipa, I am sorry to hear news of your mother…” Joanna’s voice was cold. “However, the matter of your father is out of my hands. I cannot interfere for not even a princess is above the will of God.”

I was stunned. “What are you talking about? Princess Joanna, where is my father?”

It was not the Princess who answered my question. The doors to the grand hall swung open and Tomas de Torquemada strode in, his red-robed guards of the Inquisition flanking him on either side.

“Lady Felipa Molina,” he spoke loud enough so that all those assembled in the hall could hear, “your father has been taken to the dungeons.”

I looked at him, my heart pounding. “I’m sorry… I do not understand. Why would my father be in the dungeons?”

Tomas de Torquemada held me with his cold eyes, as if weighing up his next move, and when he spoke his words were a knife in my heart.

“Your father allowed your mother to die without last rites. He mocks the one true faith of the Catholic religion. The Inquisition has taken him so that we may see if his heart is true to the Church and to the Queen.

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