‘Take this, I’ll take the torch.’ Leonor started down the corridor.
The key was cold and heavy, Alba gripped it as though her life depended on it. As she followed Leonor, she prayed that the lock in the door at the other end hadn’t rusted solid. They must escape.
Their father the Sultan was becoming more tyrannical by the day. When Alba and her sisters had asked permission to explore Granada on horseback, he had responded by locking the three of them in their tower. Later, the Princesses had been informed their ponies were no longer in the palace stables. They had been sold.
The sale of their beloved ponies had been the final straw, the moment when the Princesses understood that not only was Sultan Tariq a tyrant, but also that there was no hope for him. He was never going to change. Grimly, Alba set her jaw. She had hopes. Dreams. Her father wasn’t going to crush them.
The tunnel twisted this way and that, a dark serpent winding beneath the palace grounds. The air was stale and smelled of earth and rust, and with every step the walls closed in. It was hard to breathe. Alba’s skin prickled with sweat and she had the strangest urge to pant.
Torchlight wavered over the tunnel walls. Alba tried to imagine which part of the palace lay above. The orange grove? The lawn beloved of the palace peacocks? The Court of the Lions?
There were footsteps at her back, Constanza must be close on her heels. Gradually, her breathing eased. The three of us are in this together.
The key bit into Alba’s palm. Her veil was a nuisance, filmy though it was, it was suffocating. Alba didn’t stop to remove it though, the habit of obedience held her, even here in the tunnel.
Alba and her sisters had broken the Sultan’s rules once or twice. But tonight, even though they were, she prayed, escaping the life of restriction their father had planned for them, the veil that symbolised their oppression was peculiarly comforting—a shield as it were. There was no saying what was in store for them outside the sally port, she might want to hide.
Leonor forged on without as much as a backward look, clearly, she had no doubts. Suddenly, she stopped. ‘I can’t see the end,’ she said. ‘Is Constanza behind us?’
‘I think I can hear her. Keep going.’
Alba had strapped a money pouch beneath her clothing; it felt heavy, like a dead thing. Her chest ached for lack of air—she was all too conscious of the weight of earth and rock above them. Her palms were clammy and cold sweat trickled down her spine.
Then the air shifted, it seemed cleaner. Sweeter.
Leonor halted, she was frowning at a door so ancient it looked to have grown into the walls. ‘We’ve reached the end.’
Panting only a little, Alba reached past her, fitted the key into the lock and twisted. The handle was rusty and when Leonor wrenched at the door, the hinges moaned in protest.
‘Here, let me help,’ Alba murmured.
They pushed and shoved, and between them made a narrow crack. As it widened, fresh air wafted in. Leonor squeezed through the gap.
A soft footfall in the tunnel told Alba that Constanza was a few paces behind. Swallowing hard, she gathered her cloak about her and slipped out, breathing properly for the first time since entering the tunnel. Like magic, the tight band about her forehead eased.
They were outside the palace! The danger wasn’t past, but at least she was free of that ghastly corridor, it had felt like a tomb.
Trees made dark silhouettes against a starry sky. The moon, barely visible through her veil, glistened through a tangle of branches. In a hollow below the sally port, she could see the faint glow of a lantern.
How odd, the only person Alba could see was Leonor. Beneath her veil, she frowned. Three Castilian knights should be waiting for them. It was all arranged. Their duenna Inés had sworn that their ransom money had been paid in full. Those men should be free. Where were they? Had they, alienated by their captivity, changed their minds?
Alba wouldn’t be surprised; her father had treated those knights abysmally. They’d spent weeks clearing a rock-choked ravine outside the palace walls, the same ravine that was overlooked by the Princesses’ tower. The Princesses, bored and angered by their confinement and the loss of their beloved ponies, had been quick to notice and recognise them as the self-same men they’d seen first at Salobreña, and again in a convoy of prisoners marching from Salobreña to Granada.
Fuelled by anger, the Princesses had begun a forbidden flirtation from the top of the tower. At night, when the palace was lost in sleep, they had listened to the knights singing. Realising the men were half-starved, they’d sent food baskets down on a rope. In short, they’d ignored all protocols and had behaved quite outrageously. Inés, who had come from Spain with their mother the Queen, and was herself Spanish, encouraged them.
No one had dreamed anything would come of it. It had been a rebellion, a way for the Princesses to channel their anger. Sultan Tariq had locked them in the tower; he had sold their ponies; he refused to listen to reason.
Throughout this dalliance the Spanish knights were distant, mysterious figures, prisoners of their father. Other than that, the Princesses knew next to nothing about them. It was a measure of their seclusion and desperation that they only had these men—strangers—to help them escape.
Inés had contacts outside the palace and she wanted the Princesses to be happy. She had laid her plans with care. The three knights were supposed to spirit the Princesses out of the Emirate of Granada and into the Spanish Kingdom of Castile where they would be beyond the reach of their tyrannical father.
Castile. Alba had longed to see it all her life. In the years since the Queen’s death, Inés had taught the Princesses Spanish. Sultan Tariq might have isolated his daughters, but that hadn’t stopped them from learning that they had relatives in Castile. They were determined to find them and make a new home for themselves. They would be together, and they would be safe.
Alba peered warily about. The terrain around the disused sally port was all in shadow. It was lightly wooded, resembling the scrubland overlooked by the Princesses’ tower—namely a gully, clothed with shrubs and trees, and choked with rocks.
Where were the knights? Her breath was flurried. Nerves, she supposed.
And then she saw them. Six men. Three she recognised as the knights, the others must be their squires. The knights were arguing, their words were sharp and angry. Alba’s stomach knotted. Angry men wouldn’t be much use. The dark wood seemed to tilt, she was dizzy with an overwhelming mix of excitement, exultation and fear. She had escaped the palace. She and her sisters were free. Could they trust these men? Were they dangerous?
The odd phrase reached her.
‘For pity’s sake, Enrique,’ one of the knights ground out. ‘Will you see sense?’
A second knight cut in. ‘Enrique’s my cousin, I’ll deal with him. Rest assured, no one will be hurt.’
Alba recognised the second knight as Count Rodrigo. Leonor had managed to speak to him in private once, and she’d told Alba his name some days ago.
In the distance, dogs were barking. Alba’s heart jumped. Had her father released his hunting dogs? Filled with fear, she tried to see through the trees. It was impossible.
With a start, she realised that Count Rodrigo was standing next to Leonor and he too must have heard the dogs, for he cocked his head to listen, took command of Leonor’s torch and put it out.
The dark intensified. One of the other knights approached and bowed over Alba’s hand. He was touching her.
Alba froze. Save for her father, in her whole life no man had presumed to touch her. She willed herself not to react. This knight was her means of escape. He was not a palace guard, he was Spanish like her mother, and Inés had explained that a Spanish knight would not think it odd