Exile of Doubt

This work of historical fiction begins in the year 1492 when a Jewish navigator, a Muslim soldier, and a Christian winemaker find themselves sharing a prison cell, each charged with a different crime: the Jew as commited heresy by teaching that planets revolve around the sun; Ferdinand and Isabella are expelling Muslims; and to protect his daughter, the Christian vintner has killed a monk, the Grand Inquisitor's squire. To escape the Spanish Inquisition all three accept assignment as crew on a risky search for a western route to the Orient aboard one of Christopher Columbus' ships. But the vintner jumps ship and begins a long trek to rejoin his wife and daughter. The Grand Inquisitor finds himself intrigued by the Navigator's thinking about astronomy and jerks awake one night with suspicions that the vinter may also have been infected by the curiosity and questioning of his Jewish cellmate. He decides to find out. Meanwhile, the non-Christians dare not return to Spain where the Muslim's religion and the Jew's doubts about all beliefs are fatal. Seeking a permanent home in Portugal for himself and his Muslim friend, the navigator manipulates King Joao to renogiate the line that divides the New World between Portugal and Spain. But their welcome in Portugal dies with King Joao, and they must find a home elsewhere, so they hatch a plan to arrange their own banishment to what is now Brazil where they encounter a new culture of belief.