Spanish Inquisitor Don Felipe considers himself a loyal servant of Holy Church. Despite his lifelong friendship with the Jewish Gamito, despite the courtly love for their Islamic playfellow's sister that inspired him to celibacy and the priesthood (not necessarily in that order). Despite his own secret sin, despite his own arrest and long imprisonment in midlife by the Inquisition he serves, despite his love for and private marriage with the barren Romany woman Pilar.

Why, then, these nightmares that recurrently trouble his sleep, in which his ancestress the heretic Raymonde and purported descendant the Pagan Rosemary guide him through terrible visions of the evil humans do to one another in the name of righteousness?