In the mid-fourteenth century, the Nasrid kingdom was enjoying its greatest splendor. The sultans erected palaces in the Alhambra. Marble columns adorned their courtyards, and the walls were covered in gold leaf and lapis lazuli. The strongman at this splendorous Court was the vizier, Ibn al-Khatib; Prime Minister, advisor, historian, poet and doctor. To his detractors, he was a man of incommensurate ambition and greedy for wealth, who fashioned himself to be a mystic and betrayed his king. To his followers, he was a man passionate about literature who performed tireless political activity, as well as being wise, scholarly and endowed with an amazing eloquence. A key personage who was both a witness and protagonist of his era, by following his story in this historic novel we get to discover the inner workings of a Court seething with resentments and ambitious, in which dying in bed was a privilege that few achieved.