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  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.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London

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  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  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.

  Freize, a square-faced young man with a ready smile, only a few years older than his master Luca, didn’t wait for Ishraq’s response. ‘He’s head over heels in love with her,’ he continued, ‘and if he had lived in the world and ever met a girl before, he would know to be on his guard. But he was in the monastery as a skinny child, and so he thinks her an angel descended from heaven. She’s as golden-haired and beautiful as any fresco in the monastery. It’ll end in tears, she’ll break his heart.’

  Ishraq hesitated to reply. Her dark eyes were fixed on the two figures ahead of them. ‘Why assume it will be him who gets hurt? What if he breaks her heart?’ she asked. ‘For I have never seen Isolde like this with any other boy. And he will be her first love too. For all that she was raised as a lady in the castle, there were no passing knights allowed, and no troubadours came to visit singing of love. Don’t think it was like a ballad, with ladies and chevaliers and roses thrown down from a barred window; she was very strictly brought up. Her father trained her up to be the lady of the castle and he expected her to rule his lands. But her brother stole everything and she was bundled into a nunnery. These days on the road are her first chance to be free in the real world – mine too. No wonder she is happy.

  ‘And anyway, I think that it’s wonderful that the first man she meets should be Luca. He’s about our age, the most handsome man we’ve – I mean – she’s ever met; he’s kind, he’s really charming, and he can’t take his eyes off her. What girl wouldn’t fall in love with him on sight?’

  ‘There is another handsome young man she sees daily,’ Freize suggested. ‘Practical, kind, good with animals, strong, willing, useful . . . and handsome. Most people would say handsome, I think. Some would probably say irresistible.’

  Ishraq delighted in misunderstanding him, looking into his broad smiling face and taking in his blue honest eyes. ‘You mean Brother Peter?’ she glanced behind them at the older clerk who followed leading the donkey. ‘Oh no, he’s much too serious for her, and besides he doesn’t even like her. He thinks the two of us will distract you from your mission.’

  ‘Well, you do!’ Freize gave up teasing Ishraq and returned to his main concern. ‘Luca is commissioned by the Pope himself to understand the last days of the world. His mission is to understand the end of days. If it’s to be the terrible day of judgement tomorrow or the day after – as they all seem to think – he shouldn’t be spending his last moments on earth giggling with an ex-nun.’

  ‘I think he could do nothing better,’ Ishraq said stoutly. ‘He’s a handsome young man, finding his way in the world, and Isolde is a beautiful girl just escaped from the rule of her family and the command of men. What better way could they spend the last days of the world, than falling in love?’

  ‘Well, you only think that because you’re not a Christian, but some sort of pagan,’ Freize returned roundly, pointing to her pantaloons under her sweeping cape and the sandals on her bare feet. ‘And you lack all sense of how important we are. He has to report to the Pope for all the signs that the world is about to end, for all the manifestations of evil in the world. He’s young, but he is a member of a most important order. A secret order, a secret papal order.’

  She nods. ‘I do, so often, lack a sense of how very important men are. You do right to reproach me.’

  He heard, at once, the ripple of laughter in her voice, and he could not help but delight in her staunch sense of independence. ‘We are important,’ he insisted. ‘We men rule the world, and you should have more respect for me.’

  ‘Aren’t you a mere servant?’ she teased.

  ‘And you are – a what?’ he demanded. ‘An Arab slave? A scholar? A heretic? A servant? Nobody seems to know quite what you are. An animal like a unicorn, said to be very strange and marvellous but actually rarely seen and probably good for nothing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said comfortably. ‘I was raised by my dark-skinned beautiful mother in a strange land to always be sure who I was – even if nobody else knew.’

  ‘A unicorn indeed,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Perhaps.’

  �€