Breslin : Prisoner of the Inquisition

‘A man stood at the foot of my bed. In his hand there was a long knife.
The candlelight shone on the blade and I knew by the way he held the shaft that he had used this knife before. He had killed with this knife.
My breath thickened in my throat. On my tongue was the taste of my own fear..’

Set in the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, during the war against the Moors, Theresa Breslin’s new historical novel tells the story of Zarita, the beautiful and wilful daughter of Don Vicente Alonso, a rich and powerful magistrate. One day she defies her family to secretly meet young Ramon Salazar, who is in love with her. Because of her forbidden tryst she inadvertently causes the brutal hanging of an innocent beggar.

Some years later the mariner Christopher Columbus, needing funds for his voyage of discovery, comes with his young friend Saulo to plead at the royal court. But Saulo has a mission of his own, to revenge himself on the family of Don Vicente Alonso. For it was Alonso who had ordered the hanging of Saulo’s father, the unknown beggar. To do this he has vowed to kill Alonso’s daughter Zarita.

In this time of religious conflict, when the Inquisition brought terror, torture and death, Zarita, unknown to Saulo, is already in mortal danger. She has been secretly denounced as a heretic by her jealous step-mother. By a strange twist of fate Saulo finds that he will become her rescuer rather than her murderer.

Following the outstanding success of her historical novels THE MEDICI SEAL and THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECY Theresa Breslin brings to life another dramatic period of history and one of its leading figures, Christopher Columbus.