And now monks followed her, grimy, blinking in the light. They too ran towards the noise and smoke of the field, not pursuing the girl, just running. But one of them called over his shoulder to the spectators in the viewing stand. 'The manufactory! Get away, my lady – the manufactory!'
'Dear God,' Ferron said.
Grace was bewildered, unable to understand what was happening. 'I think-'
The explosion was a roar, all around her. She was thrown forward onto the ground, helpless as a doll.
From the air, James saw fire erupt from the ground, a line of searing fountains. Monks and novices squirmed out of hatches like moles emerging from their holes, and ran off. James understood immediately. The fire was breaking out of the ground through the air vents of the underground manufactory. The explosions must have come from within the compound. It was the store of gunpowder, it could only be that. Some accidental spark had ignited it – or perhaps, he thought suddenly, it had been deliberate.
James had to concentrate on his own flight. His mechanical bird was dipping towards the ground. He had only a few heartbeats left in which he could control his descent. He scanned the ground anxiously, looking for a clear space to land.
But a fresh set of explosions broke out over the location of the main manufactory, distracting him, and James saw bones hurled into the sky. The gunpowder must have broken open a plague pit. It was an extraordinary, unnatural sight to see those bones go flying up into the air and then fall back, a grotesque parody of the Day of Judgement.
XIX
Harry, with Abdul and Geoffrey, had been watching the display from a distance, with appalled fascination. The wooden bird in the sky especially was an awful, unnatural sight.
But when the fires began to erupt from the ground they all knew something had gone badly wrong. Abandoning all attempts to conceal themselves, they ran towards the party coming from the viewing pavilion.
They met the others not far from the entrance to the manufactory. The explosions had stopped now, but smoke still poured from the ground. No more monks clambered out of the hatches, and Harry wondered how many had died that day.
Diego Ferron was unmistakable, a tall, pale cleric. He was holding a woman by her hair, a wretched, skinny girl in a grubby white gown. Beside Ferron and his captive was Grace Bigod. She was a hard woman of nearly fifty, her face smeared with soot and twisted in fury. It was the first time Harry had met this remote cousin.
Ferron seemed surprised to see Abdul with two strangers, but his rage overwhelmed him. In accented Latin he cried, 'Ruined! Destroyed! Centuries of work lost!'
'Not lost,' said Grace, her voice trembling, 'Just delayed. We have lost our engines, but those in the field survive, and we have the designs-'
'Lost because of this Christian witch!' He twisted the girl's hair and threw her to the ground.
She lifted her head. She looked straight at Harry. Her hair fell away from a bruised face.
'Agnes!' He could not have been more shocked if his sister had been raised from the dead. 'But you are in your cell in York.'
'Evidently not,' she said. Her voice was a scratch, and she coughed, her lungs full of smoke.
Grace looked at Harry and Geoffrey. 'Who are you?'
Harry ignored her and spoke to his sister. 'And you – you caused this destruction?'
She whispered, 'You are a good man, Harry, a good brother. But you are not strong enough to do what is necessary. I prayed. God spoke to me. My mission was clear. It was worth breaking out of my cell for this, wasn't it?' She forced a smile, and suddenly she looked as she had when she was a little girl.
His heart broke. He stepped forward. 'Oh, Agnes-'
But Ferron blocked his way. 'Keep away. This witch is for the Inquisition. Keep away, I say!' And he brought his gloved hand slamming down on the top of Harry's head.
The world peeled away into darkness.
XX
AD 1489
Seville was cold that February morning, and the wind that funnelled along the Guadalquivir was biting. It was a disappointment for Geoffrey, who had at least expected to be able to warm his English blood as a reward for undertaking this hellish trip.
It was a relief to get out of the open air and duck into the great cathedral, where he was supposed to meet Abdul.
In the still, incense-laden calm, he genuflected and crossed himself. The cathedral was a cavern of sandstone and marble. His gaze was drawn upwards to a vaulting roof that was filled with a golden light cast from huge stained-glass windows, a hint of heaven. There was nothing on this scale in England. The cathedral was a sink of wealth; it was expensive, tacky, uplifting, crushing; and it was certainly a monument to the untrammelled power of the Church in Spain.
Abdul Ibn Ibrahim met him just inside the doorway. His turban and long Moorish cloak looked thoroughly out of place in this Christian space.
Geoffrey greeted him. 'I'm surprised they let you in.'
The Moor shrugged. 'We Muslims are not barred. Perhaps the priests hope that I will be converted by the sheer stony mass of this place.' He grinned, comfortable in himself. 'So you arrived safely. What do you think of Spain, of Seville?'
'Overwhelming. Like this cathedral.'
Abdul glanced around. 'I think it's all a bit tasteless myself. However the cathedral's not meant for me, is it? Come,' he said cheerfully. 'Let me show you what is said to be the finest Moorish monument in Christian Spain.'
It turned out he meant the old mosque's muezzin tower, called by Christians the Giralda, which still stood. There was a doorway to it from the cathedral interior, and Abdul led Geoffrey up a series of broad ramps. Geoffrey had been expecting a staircase, but Abdul said the ramps had been designed this way so that guards on horseback could climb the tower. The ascent was easy but long, and Geoffrey, not a young man, was wheezing when he reached the top.
Here, huddling in his cloak against the wind, Geoffrey looked out over the roof of the cathedral, crowded with buttresses and pinnacles. It was as if he stood on the back of some huge stone beast. The city beyond was a patchwork of patios and domes that looked very Moorish to his untrained eye. But when he looked to the west, across the busy river with its pontoon bridge, he made out the hateful pile of Triana.
Abdul followed his gaze. 'You may not be able to help her,' he murmured. 'Agnes Wooler. The Inquisition is nothing if not relentless.'
'I can try. I was present at the destruction of the engines, but Ferron has no reason to suspect I had any involvement in that catastrophe – indeed, I didn't, not directly. And I am a Franciscan, quite senior in the order; I have letters from the church authorities in England. Ferron cannot deny me access to her hearing. At least I may learn what Agnes is forced to say to her interrogators. Then we may be forewarned for the battle to come over Colon.'
The Moor studied him. 'I don't believe you have come all this way just for the lofty purposes of prophecies. I know you by now, Geoffrey Cotesford. You care for people more than for ideas. You are here to save Agnes, an English girl who has fallen into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.'
Geoffrey felt his anger mount, as it had so often whenever he reflected on that dreadful day in Derbyshire when Diego Ferron had effectively kidnapped Agnes Wooler. 'England is not Spain. In England we have a common-
