Chapter 9
‘Kings have gone to war for less . . . kings have gone to war for less . . . ’ Don Pedro, king of Castile, paced the long reflective pool of his palace in Seville, the Alcázar, in a swish of Moorish silk, repeating the words through clenched teeth. The calm water mirrored arcades where doves crooned and soaring Arabic script declared him ‘Sultan Don Pedro’. It had all been done by artisans from Granada – a mirror-image of his own Castilian painters working now at the Alhambra for his old friend and enemy, Sultan Muhammad. And in this looking-glass courtyard, Pedro even had Muhammad’s family motto on the plasterwork beneath the arches: No one wins but Allah.
Pedro thought of the motto now, and substituted it for that other, infuriating phrase. The throaty Arabic sounds calmed hi
