In the closing years of the 15th century Spain lives in thrall to the Inquisition. Thousands of stakes across the reunified country testify to the punishment of heresy. The Moor has been pushed back into North Africa ; the Jews expelled. Obscurantism and superstition struggle for predominance against the forces of progress. And a lone sailor is about to set out on a voyage of discovery to a continent that no one even yet knows exists...