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agelessly indifferent in its beauty, its walls absorbing the echoes of its departed.
    I felt Soraya at my side. As her hand enfolded mine, I let my tears fall in furious silence.

THREE

    W e departed Granada for Castile in the evening, to avoid the worst of the heat. The trip would be tedious, with weeks of riding on our hard-backed mules; and as we took the winding mountain road downward into the valleys of Andalucia, I stared over my shoulder.
    The Alhambra reclined on its hill, tinted amethyst in the dusk. Above its towers, the sky unfurled like violet cloth, spangled with spun-glass stars. A few peasants lined the road to wave at us; in the many farms dotting the landscape, dogs barked. It was like the end of any summer, as though we’d return again next year as always. Then we rode past the tumble of stones by the roadside where it was said Boabdil had taken his last look at Granada and wept.
    Like him, I wondered if I would ever see my cherished palace again.

    THREE WEEKS LATER, WE REACHED THE ARID PLATEAU OF CASTILE and the city of Toledo. Perched on its cragged hill above the river Tagus, Toledo caught the sunset as we approached—a beautiful tumble of white and ocher buildings crowned by the cathedral. I’d always liked the narrow winding streets and the smell of baking bread in the morning, the burst of sudden flowers glimpsed in a courtyard from behind cloister gates, and the glorious Mudejar archways engraved with the secrets of the vanquished Moor.
    Now I saw it as a prison, where my future had been decided without me. Toledo was the official gathering place of the Castilian Cortes, that advisory council of lords and officials elected by each major city in Castile. My mother had curtailed the flagrant power of the Cortes from the anarchy prior her reign; however, she still had to appeal to this body to sanction taxes and other major expenditures, as well as royal unions and investiture of her succession.
    These same Cortes had approved my betrothal.
    As we rode up the steep road toward the Alcázar, I compressed my lips. I’d barely spoken the entire trip, and my ill temper only increased once I found myself within that old castle, a cavernous warren with walls that were always damp to the touch. After the oleander-dusted patios of the Alhambra, it felt suffocating, and to make matters worse, here my French lessons began in earnest, supervised by a humorless tutor who subjected me to interminable lectures and the painstaking daily recitation of vowels.
    He drilled me four hours a day, his accent as sour as his breath. I took cold comfort in deliberately mutilating my verbs and watching him turn white with anger; until one afternoon as he droned on and I sat with hands clenched, I heard the clatter of hooves entering the bailey.
    I ran to the narrow embrasure. I could scarcely see into the bailey, craning my face against the window slit to catch a glimpse of the arrivals.
    “Mademoiselle,” the tutor rapped.
“Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît!”
    I ignored him. When I spied the tethered stallions caparisoned in scarlet, I promptly flew from the classroom, leaving him standing there, aghast.
    I dashed down the stone staircase. A group of Castilian nobles appeared ahead, making their way to the
sala mayor,
the great hall. I spun around, yanking at my cumbersome skirts, and made haste to the minstrel gallery. If only I could reach him before my mother did, convince him to—
    I cursed under my breath when I espied courtiers already assembled in the hall. I could not go in now without an escort, and I crouched instead behind the screen concealing the gallery from the
sala,
to watch as the lords of my father’s court strode in.
    When I saw my father with them, I sighed in relief.
    His red cloak was flung over his shoulders. The wool would smell as he did, of horse and wine, and his own sweat. Mud-spattered boots hugged legs thick with the muscles of a lifetime spent in the saddle. He wasn’t tall, but he