Summary

Chapter 12

In Chapter 12, Sor Beatriz finally gets a new assistant in autumn, 1548 when Esperanza collapses at their gate. The only child of the King's advisor, Esperanza grew sick as a child after seeing another girl burn at the stake as a heretic, so her nurse is dismissed and she becomes her father's companion. He reveals his possession of many forbidden books which Esperanza studies at length, but after her father's death, her guardian accuses her of heresy, claiming he cannot marry her off because her mother was a Muslim. Esperanza visits Don Jaime, her father's friend, who admits that her mother was a Muslim nun who ran away to marry her father with the plan of fleeing Spain and returning to the Muslim faith. Unfortunately, she died in childbirth, but first, she exhorted her husband to promise to raise their child as...