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The Princess’s Secret Longing

by Carol Townend

Chapter One

1396—the Alhambra Palace in the Emirate of Granada

Princess Alba lay in the dark, an unfaed her from her dreams She turned restlessly, unable to work out what had woken her All she could hear was a trill of birdsong In herover lawns and terraces and flitting in and out of shrubs in the wilderness beyond the palace wall They sounded happy Free!

A lantern glowed softly in a niche, casting a gentle light on the sleeping forms of Alba’s sisters, Princess Leonor and Princess Constanza Their black hair was loosely tied back for sleep, just like hers, and their eyelashes lay like dark crescents against their cheeks Princess Alba and her sisters were triplets, identical triplets

Alba yawned and, as she looked at her sisters, she was gripped by an odd fancy It was as though she was looking at other versions of herself, versions which had yet to waken Irritated, she brushed the thought aside Her sisters’ features ht mirror hers, but their characters—oh, so very different

The bedcha was visible through the star-shaped patterns cut into the wood The Princesses hadn’t been long in their father’s favourite palace—only a few days—but already Alba knew that in daytiht into starry splashes on the floor tiles

There it was again! That mysterious noise Alba sat up What could it be? The cry of a hawk? No, that was no hawk That was surely—a baby

Her breath stopped Could it really be a baby? Whose could it be? It couldn’t belong to her father the Sultan, may God exalt him The Sultan had only sired three children, Alba and her sisters Sultan Tariq’s unfulfilled wish for other children—more precisely, for a son—ell known

Alba scra on a cushion, for the as low and the floor hard, she shoved at the shutter and strained to hear more She’d spent most of her life far away in Salobreña Castle and not once had she held a baby A pang shot through her, violent and intense If there was a baby in the palace, she must see it Hold it

Loath to wake her sisters, Alba snatched up a robe and veil and was dressed in no tiht her way, crept softly downstairs and slipped out of the tower

The stars were fading, the sky was turning pearly grey and the air was pleasantly cool

Ahead of her, paths ran this way and that Buildings were visible as black shapes at the end of the paths So many walls and towers Alba had yet to learn the layout of the grounds, but in this instance, it didn’t uide There was a baby in the palace!

Stepping on to the lawn, Alba sped past a hissing fountain She entered a sreeted by the heady scent of oranges A section of the palace wall lay on her left hand and light glowed briefly frouards